7. Have Fun

An excerpt from a longer essay on “The Discipleship of Discernment”: insights from a year of prayer and fasting about decision-making, God’s will, and living in obedience to the mission of Jesus Christ.

“Do you think I’m making too big a deal out of this?” I asked God on one of my prayer walks. I don’t know if you can tell when God nods, but I knew my spirit within me was nodding. This was only my six hundredth time to pray about this subject this year. 

By the spring of 2019, I had three open doors in front of me. Knowing that I was headed to an unreached people group (UPG), I knew of three opportunities that would put me on the ground with teams doing work with UPGs - in Marseille, Athens, and East Africa. I had touched base with each of the teams, and they were all open to my coming for a vision trip to explore and learn for a few weeks. Now I just had to choose which one and when to do it. 

Do I tend to make a big deal out of decisions? Yes, definitely. 

Decisions do hold a lot of power, but not in comparison to God’s omnipotence. I think it’s important we give the proper amount of power to where it is due. 

The way we go about making decisions actually says a lot about what we believe about God. When I overly stress, does it not reveal that my soul doesn’t take him seriously when he says he will guide and provide? That I fear he will fail to help me and then punish me for a wrong decision? That I need to decide now and his timing is not fast enough? That he is withholding good guidance from me and then waiting to see if I am paying enough attention to choose wisely? 

These kinds of questions started to reveal to me the false narratives that I held about God. And I had to go back to what I know is true:

God guides, not drives. He is a good shepherd who gently leads his sheep; he doesn’t begrudgingly plod them along. 

God is also a good father. I came across Psalm 25 in the passion translation that says it this way, “You are so easy to please.” Do I really act like I believe that? 

I looked at my own furrowed brow and worried eyes, and then I looked into God’s beaming face. I saw that he wasn’t burdened by this like I was.  In fact, I was the one stressed while he actually seemed rather lighthearted about it.

~~~~~

I remembered when I first left for Africa how many people gave me parting words:

Be safe. 

God speed. 

Good luck. 

Take care. 

There was this one guy that I hardly knew, but I knew that he had lived in Africa, and I knew he wasn’t the type to give typical, thoughtless words. I will always remember what he chose to say to me before I left. “Have fun!” 

Have  fun? I remember thinking that was a strange thing to say...didn’t he of all people realize how serious this was? Didn’t he know that missions isn’t about having fun?

Turns out, he did know what he was talking about, and he knew better than anyone that living with Christ in Africa would be challenging and heartbreaking. That’s why he said what he did, to remind me when things got serious to not take myself too seriously, to lighten up and let God bear the weight, to have fun while living out my faith. He gave the best parting advice of any of them. 

~~~~~

God reminded me of that story as I prayer-walked with him and asked him if I was being too serious about things. Have fun, he reminded me. It was almost as if God was excited about where we were going and how we would get there.

So who was putting all this pressure on me? I had been treating God as if he was, when suddenly I realized that it had been myself.

One time in my early childhood, I was sitting in the backseat of a car with my friend. On a warm sunny day, once his mother turned into the neighborhood and allowed us to unbuckle our seatbelts, he rolled down the window and then, since we were small, climbed up onto the arm rest of the door to stick his head way out like a puppy and enjoy the wind in his face. 

The window started to roll up. “Mom, mom!” he cried, accusing her of unknowingly rolling up the window while his head was out. “Stop it!” 

“I’m not touching the button,” she said calmly, but the window kept going up until his head got sandwiched in it. He was not hurt, but he was frantic and confused, and we the innocent onlookers could do nothing to help, so naturally we just laughed at him. How much more we all laughed when we realized it was his own knee on the arm rest that pushed the button and rolled the window up on his own head! 

In the same way, I sensed God laughing, not in a mocking way but in a healing way, to deescalate the situation and show me, as a good father does, that I was free to be light-hearted and choose joy when facing my decisions. I was free to laugh and take my own knee off the button that was putting pressure on my own heart. 

Pressure off. 

Ecclesiastes 9:7 says, “Go, eat your bread with joy and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do.” 

For those who are in Christ, we are approved by God. He wraps us in his righteousness, but he does not automatically micromanage everything we do. As long as we are following the will of God revealed in the word of God, we can eat and drink and make choices in joy because God approves of what we do. Because we are doing it with him and through him and for him. 

~~~~~

Imagine a father and a son who worked together to plan an auction on their farm. The profit from the auction would provide important income for the farm and the family. The father and son knew each other so well from having worked together, that the father sent the son out to purchase the items for the auction. He gave him his wallet, his truck, and the instructions to buy the items, trusting that his son would get items that he would approve of, since he already approved of his son. 

But when the son took the keys and got in the car, his anxiety built so much that he could not even start the car. “He didn’t tell me exactly where to go or what to get. What if I get the wrong items?” Frozen in fear, he was unable to accomplish the task his father gave him. 

The son returned to the father to ask for reassurance. “But son, I have given you my wallet and my keys and my truck. I have given you instructions. That is everything you need. Since you know me, I trust you to collect the items that please you because I know they will please me.” 

The son then completed the request and returned with a truck load of goods. The father was overjoyed, not because of the exact items that the son found, but because he had accomplished the task given to him.

~~~~~

God is not as pleased by our performance as he is by our obedience. He has approved us and entrusted us with a task. He has given us everything we need. So let’s not make it complicated; we are already approved. 

Just around the time God was teaching me these things, I received an invitation from my own father to backpack across Isle Royale with him in the fall. Without hesitation, I wholeheartedly agreed. An amazing adventure in the wilderness? With my dad? It was a no brainer.

I marveled at how quickly I made that decision and yet how much I hesitated with the decision I needed to make about the vision trip. Was he not also my Heavenly Father who knows me? Was he not also inviting me on an adventure with him? Was he not teaching me to be lighthearted and make my decisions as one already approved? 

That week I arranged a week long backpacking trip with my dad across Isle Royale and a two month trip to Marseille, Athens, and east Africa. Jesus and I were going on an adventure. There were things he wanted me to see, and I was allowing my heart to have some fun along the way.