I want to talk about something very serious today. This is something that has been on my heart, and I think many people are struggling from the lack of this important ability. It plagues many and causes hardship and tension when it is not present. I’m talking about fun. Did you like how I tried to make it sound like I was going to talk about something really heavy and sad? I thought it was pretty funny (Hey! It’s like I’m going to talk about fun and made a funny joke!). I want to talk about the importance of fun. We face a lot of tough things in life, things that make it hard for us to continue and want to run away and become a recluse. We can’t do that, the world needs each and every one of us. We all play a vital role in this world, it’s the reason we were created by God! One of the strongest weapons we have in our arsenal is fun, yet most of us try to take the world way too seriously. Having fun creates an open culture in your life, meaning, you find joy even in the hardest circumstances. Even though we face hardship, we can praise God and have fun. Psalm 149:1-5 says, “Praise the Lord. Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise in the assembly of his faithful people… Let them praise his name with dancing and make music to him with tambourine and harp. For the Lord takes delight in his people; he crowns the humble with victory. Let his faithful people rejoice in this honor and sing for joy on their beds.”

Now this verse isn’t saying that you should go and grab your tambourine for church, which would be pretty bizarre if no one was expecting it! What this verse is speaking to is the fact that God loves when we have joy and when we celebrate the life we have been given. It’s so boring to take everything so seriously, God gave us fun so that we could use it! Fun is powerful. Fun creates memories. Fun is inspiring. These are some of the aspects of fun I want to share with you today. I’m writing about it because people are missing the mark when it comes to fun. We can get so caught up in our image, our careers, and our chores, that we forget the power of fun. Fun is powerful, and fun pushes our enemy back down. Fun is vital, so let’s have some.

Fun is powerful.

There’s just something inherently powerful that can be found in fun. There have been moments in my life where I feel as if I can’t go on, where I just want to sit all day and avoid the circumstances that seem to be all around me. Fun is powerful because it was created by God. Fun can help heal the open wounds on our hearts. Last year, I saw friends die, family struggle from the effects of addiction, and a creeping loneliness, but God wasn’t done with me. I had family and friends that surrounded me with love, and fun. People mourn in many ways, but for me, I love to laugh. I’ll watch comedies and sketch shows for hours and feel my spirit lifted. I know, it seems not like the normal Christian answer. I know how hard it is when you struggle, people will say things like, “if you pray hard enough it will get better.” I don’t think that’s true. Prayer is vital to healing and a relationship with God, but we also need fun. We need to have people in our life that will walk with us through the pain and help us see the joy in life. For me, it was having a roommate that cared. My old roommate John was someone that understood the power of fun. In the days where I felt like nothing mattered, he showed me how to laugh. We would joke around and watch dumb YouTube videos for hours, and God moved. John is my friend, and John showed me the fact that fun is powerful in my life. You see, God made fun. God loves comedy, I mean just look at flamingos! Fun is powerful because God made it. Fun is powerful, because it is the strongest weapon against pain.

Fun creates memories.

One of my heartbeats is that we are creating memories on a daily basis. We write a new chapter in the story of our life each day we wake up. Fun helps make some of the strongest memories, memories that I can look back on and hold close to my heart. I think back to the memories of my family, every Friday night we would have family fun night. It was an intentional moment my parents made to show my sister and me the importance of fun. I have memories of eating waffles and ice-cream, eating upside down and backwards dinner, and nights of eating at Steak N Shake before going to the movies. I don’t remember the movies we saw or the exact meals, what I remember is the fun we all had together and the love that I felt. My parents used the moments and the small things to take hold of each phase of life we were in. Even now I’m at home for college and we still have board game nights and watch movies, we have fun, and that fun is creating memories that will last with me forever. Have fun, with friends or family, have fun and create lasting memories.

Fun is inspiring.

One of the biggest aspects of fun is the fact that people just like you more when you are willing to have fun. No one enjoys being around a stick in the mud, sorry to those of you who may be the aforementioned stick in the mud, but there is hope for you! We enjoy spending time with people who make us feel good. I try to be fun, I’d rather laugh than have a sour face. We need to be willing to have fun, to enjoy life. We need to remember not to have fun at another persons’ expense, but to laugh with one another in a way that build each other up. Fun inspires people to look up to you and want to follow you, because it makes it easy for people to follow you! It doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive to have fun, Jesus would share a meal with people close to him and just simply spend time together. So instead of trying to make a grandeur day or getting caught up in the details, simply have fun. Fun is inspiring, being willing to laugh and look silly will translate your influence more than trying to be cool or the most put together. Cut loose and laugh, because fun is inspiring.

Fun is such an incredible gift we have been given. It can be so easy to get bogged down by the stresses of life, or let the enemy keep us down after we face struggles. Fun is the key to breaking this. Fun was designed by God, and we can rejoice even in the midst of trial and madness. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that God is always by my side when I pursue him. So when life gets tough and I feel like I can’t go on, he is there to guide me through the chaos. He gives me joy, so I will praise him (and don’t worry I’m not going to whip out a tambourine any time soon). We all need to find the fun in our daily life. Because fun is powerful, fun creates memories, and fun is inspiring.

So get out there and have some fun.

-Joshua Thomas