Post #11 -- The Fun of Having Fun

Meet Elmo.  This friendly little guy is my editor.  My sister in California, Ruth Ann, has been contracted to serve as my “Blog Editor and Administrator”, but apparently she has delegated the editing portion of that responsibility to Elmo and his red pen.  Actually he’s doing a pretty incredible job correcting my prolific grammatical errors.  However, he recently crossed the line by also sending me an unsolicited review comment, “Don, the posts you are writing are getting a bit too serious.  You need to lighten up now and then and have some fun!”  

I admit I was a bit irked at first at his rather offensive brashness and am still processing his comment.  But I’m beginning to think and feel, though, that Elmo might have a point about having some fun. 

FUN!  I suspect because of my loving, but rather fundamental Christian, upbringing I’ve always unknowingly considered an emphasis on fun as rather superfluous and not part of a normal spiritual journey.  So I’ve wondered, does God really want us to play and have fun?

Solomon penning Ecclesiastes certainly thought so …

“There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil.  This also, I saw, is from the hand of God.” (Ecclesiastes 2:24, ESV) 

“So I recommend having fun, because there is nothing better for people in this world than to eat, drink, and enjoy life. That way they will experience some happiness along with all the hard work God gives them under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 8:15, NLT)

It looks like Nehemiah would agree …

"Nehemiah said, 'Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is sacred to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.'" (Nehemiah 8:10, NIV)

Any way you cut it, God is concerned about our well-being and our enjoyment in life. “The Lord be exalted, who delights in the well-being of his servant” (Psalm 35:27b, NIV) and taking periodic breaks from an intensive work regimen to relax a bit and have some wholesome fun certainly seems to be consistent with God’s desire for us.  

Jesus Himself invites us to a full and abundant life — “I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10)

So I’m concluding Elmo is right.

The Value of Having Fun

Google “Fun” on the internet and you’ll find that fun is an authentic expression or experience of freedom, joy, and happiness, which can be experienced with others or with oneself where one simply has fun. In a shared experience, fun releases or creates a euphoria of a deeper bond between people. Fun lightens burdens and creates memorable experiences. It moves us emotionally and it bonds us relationally.

Having fun naturally brings relaxation.  It can reduce stress and build mental stimulation. Plus a departure from the normal routine helps one step “outside the box” of life’s routine and boosts creativity.  It’s good for us!

As George Bernard Shaw has been known to say, “We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”

Learning the art of doing nothing

I acknowledge that I may be a bit of a late-comer to Elmo’s concept of having fun.  In fact, while writing the book that is now published, From a Dad…to Those Who Follow, I was rather appalled by the frequency at which I admitted to having a workaholic tendency and the fact that for most of my working years I had very few hobbies.

About 12 years ago my wife and I sensed God leading us to take a structured sabbatical from our normal day-to-day ministry. (The Navigators had suggested we do this every seven years and this was a first time for us in nearly 30 years.) We were both convicted that our frenzied lifestyle was not modeling lives honoring God.  Hence, a goal of the sabbatical was to figure out how to do a lifestyle “makeover” with a bit less frenzy, plus I wanted to learn more about churches which are majoring on focusing on reaching people outside the walls of their church.  

At one of the several sabbatical development seminars I attended, an older friend from the Midwest took it upon himself to help me lessen my life’s frenzy by teaching me how to have fun by learning “The Art of Doing Nothing”, as he called it.  He defined “doing nothing” as any activity that was clearly a departure from the normal work experience — like, in his case, playing “catch Frisbee” with his dog.  

I’m still not sure I’ve adequately learned that art, but I did learn to appreciate the need for integrating more fun into my normal activity pattern. Lest I give the impression that there were no fun times in our family’s life, that would certainly not be true — we had lots of fun times.  But I would admit that my normal work-week did not include much of what I’d call intentionally planned family fun activities — because I was busy having fun working … kind of selfishly, I guess.

But I’m changing things.  If you look through my updated filing cabinet today, you’ll find a folder labeled FUN.  Now that alone is a new thing for me!  In that folder you’ll find notes on fishing spots, vacation plans (for Deep Creek, MD, and St Augustine, FL), guidelines on winterizing the boat and camper, next steps in building the model train layout with grandson, hints on caring for roses, tips on smoking turkey and spare ribs, lists of books I want to read, rocks needed for the lapidary hobby, and notes on winemaking (enjoyed in moderation!).  Pictures of the many puzzles we put together can be found in my computer.

The challenge, as always, is to ensure that I turn these great notes in my filing cabinet into actions! 😀

From God’s perspective, all we do as followers of Him — work, rest, play, have wholesome fun, read the Bible, etc, etc — is spiritual.  There’s no such thing as some spiritual and some less spiritual (or secular) activities. I suggest that anything done to the glory of God is good and honorable and blessed by Him.  

Guarding against an obsessive focus

I’m aware that I need to be careful not to let my enjoyment of any one thing become an obsessive focus.  Marilyn tells me now and then, “Don, your focus drives me crazy”.

Here’s a very recent case in point.  Upon my head hitting the pillow last evening, the idea for this post from Elmo came to mind and frankly I did not get much sleep the rest of the night, due to a racing mind having fun mentally writing this post. (But at least I resisted the urge to get out of bed to start typing!)

The bottom line for me in all of this is that God has indeed created us to work and be productive, but also to enjoy life.  Call it fun, or enjoyment, or whatever, God is honored to have his family members laughing, singing, smiling, telling jokes, enjoying one another and simply having fun.  

Wholesome fun, for me, becomes the icing on the cake of life — as designed by God for our enjoyment all along.  I’m learning that it’s especially when life deals its biggest blows that this icing tastes the best — and that icing helps me thrive in the midst of chaos.

However, on a concluding note, after reading this post, my wife and most trusted critic simply commented, “Don, your fun is still rather bland”.  I guess I need even more help from Elmo! 😀 

Just for fun, I’d love to hear from you, my blog post readers, as to the kinds of things that bring YOU fun to the glory of God. (BTW, if you reply please use your name, so that I know who’s writing: 1) click on “REPLY”, 2) enter your comment, 3) pull down the arrow beside “anonymous”, 4) enter your name, and 5) hit “Publish”.  Big thanks.)  

Hey, Elmo, wanna go sky diving?