Summer Desirings

As I got up this morning my heart seemed heavy with thoughts, wonderings and desirings of the summer. For now, I am in Colorado enjoying time with family, although my sister isn't here and my dad left this morning for business. It has been a good time thus far and I always enjoy being in Colorado.
With the end of a busy school year comes a bit more time to asses my personal growth and where I am at in my walk with the Lord. I have certainly seem growth this year, a gift from the Lord for which I am grateful, but as the summer approached I felt the increasing desire and need to spend some concentrated effort on personal growth. I had the privilege this past semester to grab lunch with a friend I met through my sister who was attending Capital Hill Baptist Church at the time. This friend had such a love for the Lord that was captivating to me. He truly loved Christ and it showed in everything he did. He really challenged me in my personal growth and challenged me to truly love Christ. I posed the question to him of what were some of the things he has read that have been influential in his walk with the Lord? He mentioned a few that I am truly excited to devour sometime soon. One of which was Johnathan Edwards personal narrative. I have not read it yet but plan on making a night of it at a local Starbucks sometime soon. Some of the others were biographies by John Piper of different men throughout history. Again, these are some of the things that I desire to read in hopes of increasing my love and desire for the Lord.
My personal daily time with the Lord is something that I desire to revamp a little as well. I truly desire to take more seriously my bible reading, not just to read, but to learn and grow, meditate and chew. To help me with this I have started working my way through some Old Testament books and reading Mark Dever's book The Message of the Old Testament: Promises Made. This book is being used as Sunday School material at my church and they were purposeful enough to buy each family in our church a copy of it. It is a great book and Can be extremely helpful in understanding some of the issues that the Old Testament poses.
There is a long lists of books that I want to read this summer but also books that I am required to read for my internship this summer. Those books being:

1. Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life by Donald S. Whitney
   
2. The Changing Face of World Missions: Engaging Contemporary Issues and Trends by Michael Pocock.
   
3. Planting New Churches in a Postmodern Age by Ed Stetzer
   

All of these books look enticing and are books that I am excited to read. I believe I will start first with Spiritual Disciplines and Planting New Churches in light of working with Freedom Church this summer. I grow more and more excited every day to be a part of it.
Time to hit the books!