Maximum Joy Reloaded
A friend who doesn’t share my faith asked a haunting question: “So what do you guys do for fun?”That’s a stumper. We have 3 young kids, one under the age of 3 and adopted, another one overcoming a serious illness. We just had a round of lay-offs, and another one is coming. We have friends who are in the hospital, ---I could go on, but I won’t. Isn’t that just like us though? That is what we do. We go on. We go on like it’s not a prayer circle but a contest as to who has it the worst. We circle the Christian wagons and draw comfort from Church and Jesus.
We weren’t meant for comfort. We were meant for joy
I take the “fun question” very seriously. The question may have been from my friend, but it’s God’s question. God can speak to Balaam through an ass. He can speak through a stubborn person like my friend, right? My friend has a lot more in common with the ass than you might think.My first reaction to the question was a downward spiral to even less fun, to beat myself up for my lack of faith. After all, it’s practical atheism, right? James tells me I should like troubles of many kinds. I’m a horrible person. So I try harder, and like in the Paul Simon song, the nearer my destination, the more I am slip sliding away. I was the serious kid they always told: “Relax, you’re trying too hard.” I would always try to do better. My quest for fun was depressing. I had more fun counting my troubles in the prayer circle. Then I had a breakthrough. It involves liquor- 12 ounces of liquid fun.Not really. You can’t bottle it- fun is about motion, about living. Fun is the beach. Could I save some of that fun for later if I put some seawater in a bottle? Nope. Alcoholics are people who had fun that happened to involve liquor, but they believe the advertiser’s lie that it is liquid fun.
Joyless Christians are people who think they can live the snapshot photo on their Christmas card all year long
Do you remember that really exciting football game where your team won by 100 points? That great movie where it started off with everyone living happily ever after and nothing happened to change it? Joy is the spark created by the friction of the moments, like these fun examples:+
Jesus asked the legalists to cast the first stone. He was shouting after them “Hey where ya goin’? I got my popcorn!”.
Paul makes his point also against legalists and recommends they go castrate themselves, to put it politely.
Elijah suggests that Baal hasn’t responded because he is on the toilet.
Be blessed by trials instead of burdened. There is something that happens to some survivors of bombings, first observed in WWII. Instead of getting traumatized they get this immense feeling of joy, instead of feeling the loss they feel super-powered that they survived. The Redeemed are the ultimate survivors. We should choose joy.
A friend who doesn’t share my faith asked a haunting question: “So what do you guys do for fun?”That’s a stumper. We have 3 young kids, one under the age of 3 and adopted, another one overcoming a serious illness. We just had a round of lay-offs, and another one is coming. We have friends who are in the hospital, ---I could go on, but I won’t. Isn’t that just like us though? That is what we do. We go on. We go on like it’s not a prayer circle but a contest as to who has it the worst. We circle the Christian wagons and draw comfort from Church and Jesus.
We weren’t meant for comfort. We were meant for joy
I take the “fun question” very seriously. The question may have been from my friend, but it’s God’s question. God can speak to Balaam through an ass. He can speak through a stubborn person like my friend, right? My friend has a lot more in common with the ass than you might think.My first reaction to the question was a downward spiral to even less fun, to beat myself up for my lack of faith. After all, it’s practical atheism, right? James tells me I should like troubles of many kinds. I’m a horrible person. So I try harder, and like in the Paul Simon song, the nearer my destination, the more I am slip sliding away. I was the serious kid they always told: “Relax, you’re trying too hard.” I would always try to do better. My quest for fun was depressing. I had more fun counting my troubles in the prayer circle. Then I had a breakthrough. It involves liquor- 12 ounces of liquid fun.Not really. You can’t bottle it- fun is about motion, about living. Fun is the beach. Could I save some of that fun for later if I put some seawater in a bottle? Nope. Alcoholics are people who had fun that happened to involve liquor, but they believe the advertiser’s lie that it is liquid fun.
Joyless Christians are people who think they can live the snapshot photo on their Christmas card all year long
Do you remember that really exciting football game where your team won by 100 points? That great movie where it started off with everyone living happily ever after and nothing happened to change it? Joy is the spark created by the friction of the moments, like these fun examples:+
Jesus asked the legalists to cast the first stone. He was shouting after them “Hey where ya goin’? I got my popcorn!”.
Paul makes his point also against legalists and recommends they go castrate themselves, to put it politely.
Elijah suggests that Baal hasn’t responded because he is on the toilet.
Be blessed by trials instead of burdened. There is something that happens to some survivors of bombings, first observed in WWII. Instead of getting traumatized they get this immense feeling of joy, instead of feeling the loss they feel super-powered that they survived. The Redeemed are the ultimate survivors. We should choose joy.
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