"Why am I working like a dog, never having any fun?" — Ecclesiastes 4:8
When I was nineteen years old, I was at a party and a young woman my age asked me what I liked to do for fun.
The question caught me unprepared. I honestly didn’t know. When I was growing up, fun was strictly my brother’s responsibility. Like many firstborns, I took in the message that fun was frivolous, and that I had more important things to do.
I return to the question three decades later because of a conversation I had with the Lord one day. Let’s see … I don’t golf (I just dig ditches with borrowed golf clubs) and I don’t water ski (I’d probably drown). I’d love to try out an ultralight, but my wife would probably murder me if I didn’t get killed flying it. I like trying out new recipes (cooking and eating), drawing cartoons, and thinking up creative alternatives to home construction. (Could you build a house with sandbags? I wonder.) I love a good story whether it comes in conversation, book or movie form. I like playing chess with my kids, cards with my wife, and a game we call "Scum" with my in-laws. And surprise, surprise, I never realized how much fun it is to watch your kids grow up.
Anyway, one day I asked the Lord what it was like being Him. And, if I understood His reply, He said, "It’s a lot of fun."
We got talking about fun, and I started to realize how clearly God sees things. From His perspective, surveying all of eternity, the hurts and troubles and struggles that seem to occupy so much of our small lives don’t really register. With Him, we are partakers of eternal life. Put in plain English, God is having fun on a scale we can’t imagine and He wants company: us.
Have fun!
Be encouraged!
Dwight
Dwight Clough is the author of four Christian books and is an active member of Lake City Church in Madison. This devotional is also available via email and you may review the archives back to 2002. To contact Dwight or Kim, use their contact form. You may also support their ministry.