Summer sighs

I am naked. Wonderfully naked—from the knee down. As a kid, my bare feet were so tough by the middle of summer that walking across a dirt driveway—not the soft, padded driveway but the sharp, rocky ones—was done with ease.

To feel a floor fan circulate warm summer air over my bare feet as I write this is a delight.
Cold-blooded and prone to wearing layers and layers from October to April (late April, that is), I find something so freeing about this summer especially. Being liberated from socks and shoes or boots after all these months and months makes me wonder if you are sighing with summer, too.

A psalm speaks to this casual liberation, this peace, and this tranquility from rubbing your feet over tile, carpet, sunbaked stones and soft lawn. Written anonymously, Psalm 113:3 says, “From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets, the name of the Lord is to be praised.”

The sun is earliest, highest, and longest now, as you’ve noticed. It reaches us morning people in all the right and beautiful ways. And it lingers so long that, like a great friend, it stays long after the other guests of the day are gone.

The length and the strength of the sun can make us think of the length and strength of God who is to be praised. This isn’t fabricated praise. It’s not the praise where some Sunday school teacher of the past corrals or cajoles the class into thinking of and then listing why we should be thankful to God. This praise over these days is not a “have to” but an obvious “want to.”
Perhaps the best praise to the Lord is the sigh itself. Maybe the sigh happens because we can be barefooted. Maybe it’s because of the sun finding us early and staying later. Maybe it’s because windows are open, or more meals are shared outdoors.

But there is a sigh.

Rather than think that sigh is a be and end all to itself, recognize what it does—or can do. It’s a praise to God. As watermelon and corn on the cob comes in from the nearby garden and the first August tomatoes are on their way now (slowly), sigh. Perhaps better than words themselves, let that sigh be your praise to God.

As a whole, Psalm 113 speaks to the endless scope of God’s care. In this psalm, God is seen as showing great love and attention to the poor (verses 6 and 7). He lifts the hardworking class and sets them among royalty (verse 8).

Regardless of how much your paycheck does or does not bring in, we can all be poor. Bad moods or bad circumstances strike us all, regardless of income level.

But when we praise God, something happens. We are not only set among royalty, we become royalty.

Don’t think about sighing. Yikes, don’t force it. Just when it comes in its own sweet time over this sweet season, realize when it ends that what you just did was some of the best (most authentic) praising—and praying—you can do.