After graduating from Biola, and before heading to India, I spent a little time at home resting and preparing for my trip. In that short time I was also troubled by a new question that sparked a thought project which been rattling around in my head the last few weeks.
I woke up the Monday after graduating feeling a little groggy. I’d arrived late the night before, and my drool stained cheek proved I’d slept well. I was still tired, but it was getting late, so I decided to roll out of bed onto the floor, and then work my way downstairs from there. As I struggled to get out of bed, a thought sprung into my head.“I should go read my Bible…maybe pray a little.” I pondered the thought for a moment than promptly concluded, “Nah…that doesn’t sound fun.” So, instead I went downstairs and read the sports page.
The next morning I awoke feeling fresh . No drool, but still a great night of sleep. I again thought, “Ya know, I really should read my Bible, that would be a great way to start my morning.” However, after an internal debate I quickly realized that reading my Bible would take some mental effort, so I instead opted to watch Dr. Who on TV. There was no doubt in my mind that reading my Bible at that point in time would have been good, it just didn’t sound as fun as watching TV.
So, here are the unsettling questions that arose in my mind:
Do I have an obsession for fun that deters my love for what is good? Am I more concerned with “having a good time”, then I am with glorifying God?
Pondering these thoughts for the past few weeks, the sad conclusion I’m coming to is, “Yes". By God's grace I am often empowered to focus on Him, but I am also often far more concerned with having fun than obeying God or living for His glory. This is not a question asking if we need pray for 30 minutes every day to be a good Christian, and I’m not saying that it was wrong to go watch TV instead of reading my Bible in that instance. I’m simply saying that I often don’t think about Jesus at all, and I just think doing something fun, and that is wrong.
This pops up all over my life. That movie may have some nasty scenes, but I’ll watch it because it’s fun to watch movies. I really can’t seem to find any significant amount of time to spend in prayer, but somehow I found time to play
Now the problem here isn’t “fun” at all, and solution to this problem isn't trying to enjoy life less. God made fun, and he wants us to enjoy lives full of joy. There is nothing wrong with playing sports, eating out, watching movies, reading novels or joking with friends, but they must be prioritized properly and done in a manner which is glorifying to God.
The problem is simply elevating fun to a place where I neglect God. When my mind is so consumed with a desire to have fun, that God is suddenly nowhere in the picture at all. When having fun becomes my mission; the driving force that shapes my life rather than God steering my life. The problem also arises when I confuse sinful things as fun things, and go ahead and sin simply because it’s fun (exemplified in my tearing down a buddy simply to get a laugh). Enjoying God and bringing him glory must be the ultimate focus of my life, and when I keep Him as top priority, God will be faithful to provide heaps of joy in the sports, relationships, meals and movies that fill my life.
I don’t want to have an obsession for fun that deters my love of what is good. What I really want is an obsession for God that deters my love of sin, but that’s still a work in progress in my life and will continue to be an area of spiritual remodeling until the day I die. Praise God for being patient with us as we slowly learn and grow, and praise Him for being faithful to refine us.
Kyle - Wonderful to read your reflections. I want to encourage you to keep these in a file somewhere -- it is the very sort of thing that inspires books to be written, songs to be sung, and lives to be changed! Press on in Christ dear saint!
ReplyDeleteFunny you should mention it- TurkleDurkle and I were just talking about this yesterday in our accountability time.
ReplyDeleteWell, really, I was talking about it a lot. I've been realizing just how much I am a slave to entertainment/fun/pleasure. Of course, like you said, not that these things are bad, but that I sacrifice the greater good of deep joy for the lesser good of momentary pleasure.
That looks all kinds of ways in my life, but what MT and I were talking about was how our response to this simply cannot be to try harder to enjoy the things that God has for us that bring deeper joy. If we do that, most times we'll find ourselves tired of trying so hard to enjoy something that, quite frankly, I just don't enjoy as much as, say, watching a favorite TV show on my laptop.
Instead, the answer has to be continual, constant repentance. It has to be to go to God every time and say, "Lord, this is who I really am and what I really want, and I know that you love me and have abounding grace for me and have forgiven me that I don't enjoy the things I should enjoy the way I should enjoy them. I need you to keep changing my heart and having your Spirit empower me to see things differently than before." And so on. But it's not just repenting of the actions themselves, but my heart's affections that I see revealed by those actions. It is a deeper kind of repentance.
That's where the effort comes in, but it's only in conjunction with repentance. I think that combination is what amounts to what D. A. Carson calls, "grace-driven obedience".
Thanks for the reflection. Expect an email soon- I'm going to try to be better about keeping up with you guys. I'm praying for you even now.
Andrew Faris
Someone Tell Me the Story
Faris said basically what I was thinking about. The problem isn't that you desire to have fun, but as Lewis says, perhaps your desire for pleasure (and I think "fun" falls under "pleasure")is too weak rather than too strong. Your weak desire for pleasure leads you to settle for the sports page instead of enjoy the greater pleasures found in the Word of God.
ReplyDeleteAnother side of this I think is that even if you're not reading the sports page in lieu of the Bible, your reading of said sports page becomes more pleasurable if your end is to glorify God in your enjoyment of that activity.
I'm not totally sure how that looks, but I think the principle is true.
The deeper problem is that our thinking is that we SHOULD, or that we HAVE TO read our Bibles and pray, instead of we GET TO read the divinely inspired Word of God and we GET TO talk directly to the sovereign ruler of the universe as a loved child talks to his or her loving Father. These things are not chores, they are inherited priveleges that we get through our adoption.
Thanks for the post Kyle! I love you guys a lot and I'm praying for you.
All for Jesus!
MT