Recovering Delight in Our Discipleship

Having fun as a bold act of claiming abundance

Deidre Braley

is author of The Second Cup, where she integrates theology, poetry, and a healthy dose of wonderment to encourage seekers and believers alike. She is the Editorial Content Director at The Truly Co., and her work has appeared in The Way Back to Ourselves, Vessels of Light, Prosetrics, and more. She is a wife and mother of three living in Maine.

Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash (edited)

“Did you know my grandmother was actually a preacher?” he asked. His mouth made a surprised little frown that confessed, I didn’t expect to say that just now, but I guess here we are.

I looked up from my notes, our shared document, the work. “She was?” I hadn’t planned for our meeting to take this turn—wouldn’t have guessed it in a million years—yet here he was, my consulting client, removing his metaphorical sandals to venture onto holy ground.

“Yeah, she was. I went to church all the time as a kid. I still remember all the Bible stories. Yeah, I think it’s good for kids to hear those stories.” He paused for a moment. “It’s just that—honestly? I got older and busier, and I guess I stopped going because it felt like they wanted to take away all my fun.”

He went on to list all the fun he’d been denied, and as he spoke, I couldn’t help but think: Well of course he left. What on earth would have inclined him to stay?

Augustine, a fourth-century theologian, asked, “For who wishes anything for any other reason than that he may become happy?”¹ Happiness is one of humanity’s most fundamental pursuits—and having fun is one of its most direct routes. But my client’s personal experience had taught him that church was not only a place where he couldn’t have fun—it was where any existing happiness would get squashed, too.

Every time I hear something like this, I want to stand up and scream, “Church! We must do better!” Where do people get these images of dusty, cold sanctuaries and hard pews? Of straight-laced and scowling elders? Of stark surroundings and generally bleak prospects?

Well, from us, of course.

Holy and Happy

For some reason, the mindset that happiness is at odds with holiness has penetrated the Church. We drag Jesus around behind us like he’s the ball to our chain, forgetting that when he walked the earth, children flocked to him (Matthew 19:13), John the Baptist leapt in his mother’s womb for him (Luke 1:41), and disciples followed him at the drop of a fishing net (Matthew 4:19-20). He was not some Eeyore or goody-two shoes that people only tolerated—there was something magnetic about him. You might even say he was the life of the party! As he pointed out himself, “Can the wedding guests be sad while the groom is with them” (Matthew 9:15)?

See, a discipleship that kills delight is not discipleship at all, because it perpetuates the misunderstanding that we serve a stern God who frowns at our pleasure. That couldn’t be farther than the truth! Our longing to have fun and enjoy our lives is not a sin—it’s a desire that was breathed into us when God made Adam and Eve. In the words of Blaise Pascal, “What else does this longing and helplessness proclaim, but that there was once in each person a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace?”²

We are made in the image of a happy God, and we are created for a world with glorious music, brilliant colors, and such luminosity that our washed-out vision would weep at the sight of it. The book of Revelation supports this. When John was taken in the Spirit to the throne room of Heaven, he described a voice that sounded like a trumpet (4:1), an explosion of color (4:3), and fantastic creatures (4:7-8), aromas (5:8), and music (5:9-14).

And even now, though we exist somewhere between Eden and Heaven—where our hearts do ache and our bodies do break and things are not as they should be—we have a Savior who says, “I came that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10). We have access to a life that is teeming with abundance—and having fun is the bold act of claiming it.

In the words of the great Shania Twain, “It’s our prerogative to have a little fun.”³

Fun as a Spiritual Discipline

When he first introduces Jesus in his gospel, John writes, “In him was life, and that life was the light of men. That light shines in the darkness, and yet the darkness did not overcome it” (1:4-5). Life in Jesus has a certain luminosity to it.

And later, when Jesus says, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30), we learn that life with Jesus also has a certain levity to it—that is, it defies that heavy, downward pull of gravity.

So why do we spend so much of our lives walking around on our knees, burdened and burnt-out as the protagonist of a Mary Oliver poem?⁴ Randy Alcorn offers one possible reason in his book, Happiness: “The narrower our view of God’s presence in this world—and in our daily lives—the less happiness we’ll experience.”⁵

Our worries, duties, and distractions can all narrow our view of God’s presence in our lives. With our vision pointed outward at the chaos of the world or inward at our considerable limits, we forget that our Father is all around us, ever capable of bolstering our spirits and circumstances. Here, the prospect of play feels foolish at best—and impossible at worst. Our worries, duties, and distractions are heavy—and we must practice stepping out of them regularly, much like a snake sheds its superfluous skin.

Our ability to have fun is such an accurate gauge of our spiritual health because we can only enjoy ourselves to the extent that we can see—and surrender to—the luminosity and levity of God’s presence in our lives.

Set Apart to Have Fun

The most fundamental way to define holiness is “to be set apart.” God is holy because he is totally set apart—there is no one else like him. And throughout the Bible, we see that God wants his people to be holy too: to be set apart, for him.

One of the ways we get to lean into our set-apartness here on earth is to enjoy our unbelievable freedom to have fun, to snatch delight, and to embody the fullness of life that we have because of Jesus. It’s such an unusual and unexpected mode of being that it will inevitably make people turn their heads and feel intrigued. If we are living in accordance with the abundance we've been given as believers, people should be looking at us and asking, "How come they get to live like that? And how can I?"

Last night, I was reading a book to my daughter and on one page, the characters were pictured fishing, riding bikes, and jumping rope. I smiled and thought, There are just millions of ways to enjoy being alive! Then, with a touch of sadness, I realized, ...and so few that I do.

And it’s true. Enjoying our freedom to have fun is a discipline—and one we need to practice daily. But it’s also one way we get to answer God’s call to be holy. The best part? This is the type of holiness that not only enlivens our own joy—it’s the kind that draws others toward Jesus’ joyful embrace too.

Creating Space for Fun

I began to experiment with the discipline of fun a few years ago, when I found myself grieving the death of my mother-in-law, struggling with postpartum depression, and completely burnt out from my teaching job. Everything felt dark and hard.

I had started to ask God a lot of difficult questions. They were the big, existential sort, like, “What does beauty even matter in a world where everything dies?” and, “What’s the point of anything we do, anyway?” I was very cynical of the idea that our pursuit of fun was anything more than a vain attempt to briefly forget our mortality.

One day, I picked up a copy of The Fun Habit by Mike Rucker. A health expert and behavioral scientist, Rucker writes about how to build a habit of fun in our lives in practical and intentional ways. With nothing to lose, I took his advice and started to make a “fun file”—a list of everything fun I wanted to do, no matter how impractical or silly it felt. Then, I selected ideas from the list and began to schedule them into my calendar.

I went to see the Barbie movie alone. I ate candy I didn’t have to share with my kids and I cried the whole way through without having to explain myself. I went to a Latin American café and ate empanadas and churros. I experimented with oil paints on canvas. I swam in the ocean.

And as time went on, something curious began to happen: the darkness that had been consuming me began to recede. I woke up feeling excited. I sensed abundance all around me. I felt—alive. In one essay I wrote: “...I feel nearest to God when I’m in a state of delight. When I write, when I blow raspberries on (my son’s) tummy, when I pick flowers in the yard. It’s because he has offered an abundant life, and I am finally saying, ‘Why yes, thank you. I’d like to live this life you’ve offered me. And what’s more, I’ll enjoy it.’”

The ability to have fun is a muscle that grows stronger with practice. And choosing to work it day after day expanded my ability to see God in every aspect of my life. Just like reading my Bible and prayer, the act of choosing fun became a discipline—and its reward was the constant revelation of God’s presence and provision in my life.

And so I’ve become a total fun convert—and I’ve learned to take it seriously as both a spiritual discipline in my own life, and also as a discipleship tool that can help others. Two of the most sacred questions you can ask someone else are, “What would you do if you didn’t have to do anything?” and, “What sounds fun to you?” When we begin to treat the art of having fun as holy work, we startle others into joy and newfound freedom. And if that’s not the work of Christ, I don’t know what is.

1. Augustine, “Concerning Felicity,” The City of God.

2. Blaise Pascal, “Pascal's Pensées” (The Project Gutenberg EBook: 2006) 425.

3. Twain, Shania, “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” (Come On Over: 1997)

4. Mary Oliver, “Wild Geese,” 2004.

5. Randy Alcorn, “Happiness” (Illinois, Tyndale: 2015), 21.