How we live, as Christians

[J Jack]

I was watching a Ken Davis video, and I noted something that he said. It went something along the lines of "live this life in the most boring and mundane way possible." Of course he was poking fun of the way Christians tend to live their lives, as if God will be upset that we have amusement or fun. Do you guys think that people today tend to either live very conservative lives with no fun or the other extreme of having "fun" by drinking or doing drugs. Do you find that the happy medium we should all be searching for to live our lives to the fullest doesn't exist as much as it should?

[Spokane Flyboy]

First, the issue is blurred by the definition of fun. A close relative of mine, and most in his circle, don't believe anything is fun without copious amounts of alcohol involved, and the fuzzier the details are to you the next morning, the more fun it was. And scantily clad, or even nude, women into the mix and suddenly you're "living life to the fullest". We'll agree that by this definition of fun, we as Christians have no fun. I, on the other hand, feel most alive and excited when I'm hunting, fishing, camping, hiking, or flying. If it involves seeing beautiful landscapes, sunrises, sunsets, and animals, mixed with the thrill of the hunt or the thrill of mastering the air, I'm happy.

And Ken Davis is a great comedian.

[Jeff Gerke]

I became a Christian in high school. I hadn't been living a wild life before then, but I certainly understood what people meant by "having fun." So I was amazed (and, quite frankly, thrilled) when I attended my first youth group event with the church and saw them playing Frisbee and football and stuff like that and having a blast.

It was a complete revelation to me that there was another kind of "fun" out there that didn't involve that other stuff. And I had fun, too. Pure, good clean fun. It was one more verification to me that Christianity was the way humans were meant to live.

Jeff

[strangewind]

F is for Fire that burns down the whole town, U's for Uranium...bombs! -- oops, sorry, that's Plankton's definition of fun.

As for me, I've always had a fairly odd view of fun. Before Christ came to me (at age 20 or so), I was already not into fun things, like vomiting and accidentally sleeping with people. Even in the deepest of my God-hating days, I knew that a lot of what people describe as "fun" seemed empty, often physically or psychologically revolting.

So, though I knew what "wasn't fun," I sure as shooting didn't know, exactly, what fun was.

Until Love came to town.*

That doesn't mean my life is filled with fellowship and joy every waking hour. It doesn't mean that I thrill at the eternal at every mention of the Savior. It doesn't mean that everything I do I do with passion and hope and service and glory streaming through me.

But it does mean that, now, it can. Before, though I was capable of knowing what fun wasn't, I couldn't actually experience an abiding participation in life.

Now I can.

And that's fun.

*Thanks B.B. and Bono for that image.

[Therin]

Hmmm... I just read The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis and I remember a statement by Screwtape that since all the pleasures they use for temptation are twisted from the original good things, they are subsequently less pleasurable.

Hence the most fun we could have would be what the original intention was. The pure fun is MORE fun than the impure fun. Because it's in God's will. God never intended that we shouldn't have fun. If He did, why would it be... well, fun? But He does want us to enjoy things as they were meant to be, not as they have been twisted to be. I'd agree with C.S. Lewis that there is no pleasure that is in and of itself evil. All good things are from God, right?

[lexkx]

Fun, pleasure, and joy are not the same things. But we often blur the lines between them, because fun is pleasurable, we often find joy in our deepest pleasures, things like that. This distracts from the question of "How do you share simple, pure pleasures like fun and joy with a fallen world that expects wickedness or danger to spice things up?"

An unfortunate side affect of being human is that we are prone to addiction. The more we do something, the more we want to do it. The more we do it, the more it defines us. The more we do it, the more of it we have to have to be satisfied. When this addiction is turned towards God and we crave his goodness, holiness, and power, it's kinda cool. Most of the time, Satan uses it to his advantage and feeds us his favorite lie.

That it's not fun if it's not wild.

Presenting genuine joy, fun, and shameless pleasure to the world is one of the best ways to combat this, but it comes with backlash on both sides. From "party animals" who don't know what a good time is and from churchgoing folk who value safety and sobriety above passion and freedom.

So those of us who love a good time should be prepared for the enemy to fling a bucket of horse hockey our way every time our joy touches this world. Because there is nothing he hates so much as God, and any glimmer of his goodness will result in the devil's enmity.