Pastor Harry’s Thoughts for June

“Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon you.” 

Hosea 10:12

Dear Bath Christian Church Family, 

It’s not quite the thick of summer yet, but you can feel it coming—the days stretch long, mornings break with the gentle whisper of birds chirping , and by late afternoon even the front porch seems to sweat a little. 

But ah—then comes the cool of the evening. The breeze picks up, the light softens, the world settles down, and for just a little while, the heat lifts—and you can breathe again.  That’s the beauty of this time of year—it gives us space to stop and think, not just about what’s next on the calendar, but about what’s going on inside. And sometimes, the Lord leads us to Scriptures we don’t always turn to, verses that slip past us—until suddenly, they speak louder than anything else. This month, He led me to Hosea. 

You won’t find many folks quoting Hosea at a graduation or cross-stitching it on a throw pillow, but tucked in that little book is a word for every heart that’s grown quiet and tired—a word that feels tailor-made for a month like June: “Break up your fallow ground.”  Now, we may not talk much about “fallow ground” these days, but back then, everybody knew what that meant. It wasn’t bad ground. It wasn’t ruined or useless. It was simply ground that had been left alone too long—ground that had potential, ground that once grew something, ground that was still good underneath, but now needed some care; it needed a blade to turn it, a hand to work it, and a little time to breathe again. 

And maybe that’s what God’s saying to some of us. You still believe; you still love the Lord; you’re still walking with Him. But if we’re honest—for some of us, our passion has cooled, our prayers have quiet-ed just a bit—not because we’ve decided to quit, or because we’ve made up our minds to throw in the towel, but because life has a way of pressing down on us, and it doesn’t always happen fast… some-times it settles slowly, over time, until we realize we’ve been living with dry ground and calling it normal for far too long. But the Lord doesn’t scold the soil—He simply says, “It’s time to break it up.” Because the ground is still good. The seed still works. The rain is still coming. And that means there’s still time, What I love about this verse is that it doesn’t just tell us what to do—it tells us why. 

“For it is time to seek the Lord…” 

That’s it. Not time to make a another show or just go through the motions—but time to actively seek Him. Time to invite Him in again—to places we’ve neglected, places we’ve grown used to walking past, places where nothing’s been planted in a while. 

Because the same God who sends the rain is the God who works the soil—and He sends the rain not just to bless, but to nourish the soil and bring things back to life. 

So maybe this June is less about what you do, and more about what you make room for. Maybe it’s a time not to fix yourself, but to open yourself up. Not to get louder or become more active, but to grow quieter and slow down—just a bit. To let the Holy Spirit move across your heart like a farmer surveying a field, saying, “Right there. That’s the spot. That’s the place where I want to work next. I want to break up, I want to till, I want to cultivate.” 

So, might I encourage us all to let this month, and this season, be a sacred one this year. Let the quiet days and cool evenings speak to something deeper inside each of us—because the rain is coming and when it falls, if the dry soil has been broken up, it will absorb what only a summer rain can provide—growth and harvest! So my prayer for us this month is that our hearts are ready to receive the rain, ready to receive true nourishment, so that something new can begin. 

I want to leave you with this: you are loved, you are being called, because your ground is still good. God wants to do in you today, what only He can do. 

Grace and Peace to you all, 

Pastor Harry & Jennifer