God and the Bored Christian: Why Having Fun is Just as Holy as Anything Else

Was Jesus boring?

People flocked to this guy. Sure, the religious elite muckety-mucks hated Him, but that’s because people were flocking to Him – they were jealous, threatened.

You can’t be that popular, and boring.

He began His ministry on earth by turning 180 gallons of water into wine at a wedding because the host had run out of adult beverages and everyone clearly wanted to keep the party going.

He could have done it any way He wanted; rain wine from the sky, magically fill everyone’s tummies with wine, sneak off and get more wine from somewhere else, shoot wine from His fingers, etc.

Instead, He took some large water jars that were used for ritual cleansing ceremonies, and defiled them with alcohol, making a clear statement that parties are always more holy than any ritual you could come up with.

He could have sent that message any way He wanted, too, but chose instead to send it in a way that would make uptight, boring religious people really upset.

What a smart ass. Who wouldn’t want to hang out with Jesus?

But when we read our Bibles, there aren’t many stories of Jesus having fun, and there certainly aren’t any fun episodes in the Old Testament, save the ones where people have the wrong kind of fun. As such, it’s easy for us to become convinced that our lives aren’t supposed to be any fun, either.

The Christian life is supposed to revolve around obedience, morality, reverence to God and to each other. Submission. Right? Having fun is selfish, something that has nothing to do with God.

But God invented fun. Shouldn’t we submit to that as well?

I have two friends, both influential Christian leaders, two of the funnest guys I’ve ever met. One night they took their famous British rock star friend to Target where they all purchased cheap Halloween costumes (after they tried them on in the store and took selfies), then snuck onto a golf course after dark and hit tennis balls with their golf clubs.

The tennis balls were first dowsed with gasoline and ignited before being launched across the twilit fairway.

If you’re a human being who’s understandably come to believe that Christians are boring people, that story might surprise you. It probably doesn’t sound boring. If you’re a Christian who’s come to believe that fun isn’t a priority to God, you’re gearing up to comment on how un-Christian this kind of behavior is.

For me, I have yet to meet an influential Christian – a person that other people want to listen to – who doesn’t have a deep respect for the priority of fun.

Martin Luther refused to have a conversation about God unless beer was involved. He also said that if you can’t laugh in Heaven, why go there?

“It is cheerful to God when you rejoice or laugh from the bottom of your heart.” ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

These are people who’s lives are so committed to helping others – and all the hardships that come with that kind of life – that if they don’t have fun – real fun – they’ll implode.

If your Christianity has made you bored, or worse, boring, you’ve got a very real, very spiritual problem to address. The good news is that, like all spiritual problems, there’s freedom and joy for those courageous and humble enough to move forward.

To the un-fun Christian, I feel you. Having fun can and does often lead to sin and debauchery, so it’s tempting to stay far from it. That’s what Jesus’ detractors did. They were so afraid of breaking the rules that they invented rules to protect them from breaking the rules, then added rules on top of the previous rules to protect them from breaking those rules, wash, rinse, repeat.

Jesus rebuked them for this, quoting an ancient Jewish scripture that uses strong language for people who’ve piled rule upon rule:

“These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me.
They worship Me in vain; they teach as doctrine the precepts of men.”
~ Isaiah 29:13

The avoidance of sin and debauchery is not to be the focus and point of our lives, sad as it is that many of us worship the rules more than we do God Himself.

So we don’t drink, or hang out in bars, or go clubbing, or hang out with people who do. We don’t watch R rated movies, or tell colorful jokes, or celebrate Halloween, or Easter, or do the millions of other things that aren’t sinful, things that the rest of the world loves, because the point of our lives has become sin avoidance.

When we decide a) that Christianity is all about following the rules and the resultant b) fun is wrong, we get boring real fast. But we don’t admit how bored we are, and how boring, because we’re convinced that we’re living the life God wants us to live.

But rest assured, boring we are. The Barna group, a Christian pollster organization claims that 68% of American “unbelievers,” i.e., people who don’t go to church or claim to have any faith – people on the outside looking in – say that Christians are boring.

To that we get grumpy and say things like, “They just don’t understand God. How can they, they don’t even believe.” Might be closer to the truth that it’s us boring Christians who have failed to understand God.

If your religion doesn’t lead you into a life that honors, celebrates, and experiences fun, on a regular basis, get a new one. Again, God is the one that came up with the concept of fun, spoke it into existence probably around the time He spoke everything else into existence, and implanted a strong desire for it, and an ability to interface with it, in each one of us.

Wanna honor God?

Honor, celebrate, and experience the things He’s created.

Let’s put ourselves in His shoes. Imagine that you’ve bought a rare and expensive toy for your kid, and down to the depths of their soul they really want to play with it, but won’t because they were convinced that you don’t want them to.

No matter how much you plead with them, they just won’t play with it.

How heartbroken would you be?

The Christian life should be just as marked by parties (real parties, not juice-and-cookie parties with plastic table cloths in the fellowship hall), gut-laughter, practical jokes, and flaming tennis balls flying across the night sky as anything else.

Sure, we’ll lose ourselves in the moment and commit the occasional trespass, but it’s better to be someone who honors the holy pursuit of fun with the occasional sin than someone who commits the sin of fun-avoidance – as long as we understand how full and unconditional the forgiveness of God is.

To my Christian friends, don’t hear me saying that sin isn’t a big deal, or that we shouldn’t try to avoid it. Many things that we call sin are destructive to the life that God wants for us, and the life we want for ourselves.

But there’s no such thing as complete sin avoidance – no matter what our stance on fun is, we’re going to sin, we’re going to break the rules, many times in ways that we’re not aware of, or repentant for.

We should do our best to live a life that honors God, honors other, and honors ourselves. Let’s have mentors, pastors, and other friends who aren’t afraid to rein us back when we cross whatever line, and let’s have the humility and courage to respond to them.

But it’s important to take an inventory here. Am I bored? Am I boring? Am I having fun? Have I called fun “evil,” “unimportant,” or worse, “unholy?”

A bored/boring Christian is, by definition, someone who might want to reboot their understanding of the word “holy,” and someone in dire need of a good time.

Photo Credit: Ben White