How to Turn a Self-Focused Summer Around
It doesn’t take long for our daughters (or us) to get there… completely consumed with our own comfort, entertainment, and agendas.
Our Instagram posts, Facebook pages, shopping trips, days at the pool, and Netflix binges beckon, drawing us deeper and deeper into what we want.
Sometimes it’s easier to see in our kids than in ourselves, but we all suffer from the same obsession: self.
Strangely enough, self-gratification never seems to satisfy. And that’s why we need God’s help to turn our self-focused summers (or any season) around.
Psalm 19 offers the perfect combination of resources for those of us drowning in self-absorption.
Step 1: Look up.
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. (v.1)
When we step out into nature, something bigger than us, we remember how small we are. Whether we’re looking at mountains, the ocean, a prairie, or the sky, we find ourselves in awe of God’s grandeur. And that’s healthy.
The Step 1 Challenge: Take your daughter outside to a place where both of you are faced with God’s bigness and your smallness. Let it soak into both of you. Ignore your phones. Just let the heavens and surroundings proclaim God’s glory!
Step 2: Look into God’s Word.
The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. (v.7)
Our souls thirst for Living Water. As daughters of the King, we need His Word to revive us. Yet so often we try to quench that thirst with the sugary, carbonated “beverages” of the world.
Scripture is “sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb,” and “by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward” (v.10b-11a).
The Step 2 Challenge: Read Psalm 19 with your daughter. Talk together about what it means to have your souls revived by God’s Word. Ask your daughter what kind of wisdom she thinks she needs. Discuss the rewards mentioned in verse 11, and how the law of the Lord is perfect (v.7).
Step 3: Look inside yourself.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. (v. 14)
When we’ve seen God’s glory in nature and then see His wisdom and the life He offers through His Word, we need to examine ourselves.
Do we like what we see? Our we so full of ourselves that we’ve forgotten Him? Have we become so self-absorbed that we don’t care about those around us?
He longs for us to get past ourselves. And when we do, everything changes. He is glorified, we are no longer stuck in a miserable cycle of self-gratification, and we’re finally able to bless those around us.
All we have to do is ask Him to change us from the inside out.
The Step 3 Challenge: Invite your Redeemer to change you. Challenge your daughter to do the same… to make a daily habit of giving your thoughts and words over to Christ.
For a bonus challenge, commit Psalm 19:14 to memory together. Post it on your mirror or refrigerator door to remind you of your commitment to think God’s thoughts and live to please Him instead of yourselves.
Or take it to the next level and memorize all of Psalm 19. Yes, it will mean a little extra time away from social media or the television, but you’ll be amazed at how refreshing it will be.
It might exactly what you need to set yourself and your daughter free from yourselves today!
by Jennifer Ebenhack