Have Fun!

https://www.commonsense.news/p/the-holy-anarchy-of-fun

If you want something to lift your mood today, click on the link above. I love this essay. Fun seems to me to be similar to the idea of “rest,” in my Judeo-Christian understanding of it. Life is not about the 6 days of work, but the one day of resting in the Lord. That’s when the good and memorable, life enhancing stuff occurs! That resting can and often does involve leisure, however you define such. But much of rest is just enjoying the fun that family and friends produce naturally and spontaneously. Not enough of that these days. And if we can’t embrace the glory of fun now, eternal rest (life in the world to come) will not seem very attractive. The ability to experience fun matters, metaphysically speaking.

When we rest/relax and have fun, engage in leisurely activities, we should take time to thank God for the blessings in our lives, just because He is worthy to be praised for deigning to love us into being and for sustaining this amazing world we are privileged to live on. Then we praise God with our lives. All of our lives – the work part, the drudgery, the sacrifices, and in the fun! We can’t really have fun without the dull stuff, or better, we can’t really appreciate the fun.

Diversions are really more than just keeping our minds off the rough patches in our lives and memories. Diversions are to give us that rest we require as human beings. That’s something God put in our hearts so we could turn to Him. It is! Some people are much better at losing themselves in the moment when having fun than others. But if we’re doing something we love or we’re doing something with people we love, we will usually have some level of fun. Or maybe even joy. If you think about it, everything you do is in God’s presence! You are always doing things with Someone who loves you (and hopefully Someone you love!).

“Joy is not the absence of suffering. It is the presence of God.” – Robert Schuller. I love that explanation of joy. Authentic joy is more than just fun or rest or not experiencing depression or pain or frustration. Joy is experiencing all of the things I enumerated in the second paragraph above. Joy is believing that nothing can ever separate you from God’s love.

You are very lovable and you are well loved. God thinks you are very good. The Creator of the Universe chose you to be in His world; we should celebrate that. That knowledge should bring us joy.