All
work and no play makes us dull, passionless and hard to relate to as a friend,
family member or co-worker. The purpose of play is to diffuse our negative
emotions, redirect our thoughts, develop healthy relations with our self and
others, and to stir up our endorphins.
Play
gives us a chance to deepen our relationships, forge emotional connections,
establish new friendships, and to relax and release stress and anxiety. Communicating
with other people helps our brain to strengthen and our emotions to develop
more positively.
Continually
focusing on the serious side of life impacts our overall wellbeing. We lack a
support system and feel lonely, unfulfilled and stressed. We view our self as
isolated in this world, which encourages our body to develop health issues that
shorten our lifespan.
Play
helps us to reduce unresolved conflicts, to experience more intimacy and
honesty with others, and to gain positive memories to sustain us through times
of struggle or isolation. Fun times make life less boring and predictable, and
give us new experiences to cherish.
Play
gives us opportunities to solve our problems, to improvise, and to work
together with others to improve our social and economic ability. We relax,
breathe more deeply, slow down and learn to listen more to God than to
over-react to the crisis of the moment.
Having
fun in the Son, improves our outlook on life and strengthens our spirit as well
as our soul. Jesus abides within us continually. He is a friend that sticks
closer to us than a brother (Proverbs 18:24). He is our constant source of joy,
wisdom and strength.
Prayer:
Father
God, You instruct us that unless we adopt the trusting, creative and fun-loving
aspects of a child, we will never be able to humble our self and enter into
Your Heavenly Kingdom (Matthew 18:3). Remind us that as we relax through times
of play, we are more satisfied with our life, develop deeper relationships,
relieve our extended times of boredom, and increase our creativity and
productivity.
Help
us to see that when we relax, we are better able to trust You with our trials
and to find the joy in our circumstances (Psalm 28:7). This allows us to react
to life less intensely, and we are more flexible and cooperative with others.
We are also more open to developing new friendships, which broadens the base of
the lives that we can affect for Your Kingdom. We love You with all of our
being.
Thought
for the Day:
When
we have fun in God's Son, we are more trusting in trials, maintain more faith
in God's faithfulness, view life with more flexibility and resilience, and we recover
more quickly from the trauma of adversity, health issues and difficult
situations.
