When God’s People Play

“Chase us, Daddy!”

Screams and laughter fill the air as I hide around corners and my children scurry in every direction, simultaneously trying to find me and avoid being caught. My youngest knows no fear. He runs straight for me, growling and grabbing, ready to slay the wild beast by himself. My other children join the fight, and we fall to the floor, a puddle of giggles and guffaws as tickling ensues. Every parent knows these honey-sweet moments, when our hearts well up with the fullness of life with littles. But why do we love these moments? Why do we play?

When I was in nursing school, life could be overwhelming. We had two children, both under age two, and my wife worked full time to support us while I attended classes. Opportunities to play were rare, but every weekend I took great delight in baking. Spending a few hours in the kitchen brought refreshment as I pulled yet another loaf of bread from the oven. And, oh, the anticipation of that first bite from a warm slice, the tangy-salty mixture of sourdough and butter filling my mouth!

When I stand in my kitchen making pastries, sometimes measuring, mixing, and kneading for hours, I’m exhausted at the end of the afternoon. My wife will frequently comment that she could not handle the labor that goes into my baking hobby. But while it may be laborious, for me it’s not work. It’s play. I’m having a blast as I sharpen my bread-making skills, awaiting the rewarding smell of a steaming loaf just out of the oven.

The dictionary suggests that play is taking part in an amusing or recreational activity. But there’s no clear agreement on what constitutes play because the meaning changes based on the person and the context. For some people, play is serious business, not easy to distinguish from work, like my baking endeavors. For others, play is an activity done simply for the sake of doing it with no ultimate purpose in view. When I roar like a lion and chase my children, I do it for no other reason than to make them run and laugh. A few things are for sure: play should be fun and voluntary, something done outside the usual way of doing things.

Scientists are still untangling the reasons why humans and some animals play. Turns out, it’s hard to force play for lab study. But they have discovered that play is intrinsic to our nature, not a learned activity. The clear delight humans and even animals take in various forms of play cannot be considered a happy accident. It seems God created us to play.

Of course, the Bible doesn’t contain a “thou shalt play” command. But God gives us examples of play in his Word. Scripture says that God created the sea and all the creatures in it (Genesis 1:20–21), and that Leviathan was “formed to play in it” (Psalm 104:24–26). Maybe there’s something to the joy my children have around the water table, splashing and giggling. Like Leviathan, they’re enjoying the water God provided. And they are doing it because God put the spark of joy in them that makes fun, fun.

Children are experts on fun. In one vision of life after Christ’s second coming, the prophet Zechariah describes boys and girls playing in the streets (Zechariah 8:5). The prophet Isaiah describes a future where animals are harmless and docile, so that children can “play over the hole of the cobra” without fear of being bitten (Isaiah 11:8). But the prophet Jeremiah also writes that “the young men and the old shall be merry” (Jeremiah 31:13). Play isn’t just for children; it’s for all of us. It seems God built play into life at creation so people of all ages can rest, celebrate, and grow for his glory.

Rest

Even though the Bible does not directly command us to play, it does speak of something closely related: rest. After God had created the heavens, the earth, and everything in it, Genesis 2:2 says that God “rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done.” Exodus 31:15 and 31:17 draw on Genesis 2:2 to reveal a principle for God’s covenant people: God intended rest to be part of the rhythm of their lives—and we can apply that principle to our lives today, too. It’s a chance for us to break from providing for ourselves and to rest in God’s all-sufficient provision for his people. It’s a time for believers to worship and delight in the Giver of all good things.

Our family has made rest a discipline since our children were babies. From around 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m., our children nap, and those who have outgrown their naps have “rest time.” This provides a break for my wife, who may read or nap herself, and everyone feels refreshed afterward. Of course, rest does not refer exclusively to napping, although I appreciate naps more and more each year. Rest can take many forms: reading a book, taking a leisurely walk through the neighborhood, playing a board game, worshipping at church, and more. My personal routine of rest includes waking early every morning to have a cup of coffee and read my Bible before I do any work for the day.

A close companion of rest is recreation. The word recreation can also be written as re-creation, meaning to create anew. Viewing our play time as re-creation may help us to better understand the value of caring for the body as well as the soul. We experience a God-given bodily refreshment when we exercise and have fun doing it.

Some of my favorite memories as a single young man were made on a field of grass. Once a week after work, my roommates and I would join a few dozen coworkers at a local park for Ultimate Frisbee. Racing across the field, leaping into the air with hands outstretched, the hard plastic disc sailing lightly by just out of reach. We played hard, and I had the scrapes and fat lips to prove it. Not only did I get plenty of exercise, but God used that time each week to give me a mental break from the stresses of work. We laughed and fellowshipped together and celebrated the wins, giving verbal replays of moments from the game.

Part of God’s plan for play appears to offer physical and mental benefits. As a cardiac nurse, I regularly counsel my patients that stress management is a key part of their health. Making time for rest improves not just heart health, but overall physical and mental health. People who take time to rest from their work and get adequate sleep feel better and tend to live healthier lives.

Celebration

My wife’s favorite part of her childhood was time around the dinner table. With the family gathered over a home-cooked meal, her father would ask her and her sisters to tell him all the details of their day. A great deal of family bonding occurs in dinner table fellowship.

My wife and I have sought to emulate her parents’ example, turning suppertime into a small moment of playful celebration. “What do you call this feast?” I’ll ask each of my children in turn, and they will respond with what they want to name our feast: “I call this the Butterfly Feast.” “I call it a Hot Dog Feast.” One of my children will mark our dinnertime feast by thanking God aloud for it, and then they will tell me about the day’s events, recite Bible verses they are memorizing, and interrogate me about whether there is dessert and what it might be. With music playing in the background to lighten our hearts, we delight in the prayer, conversation, and, yes, even the food at mealtime, and we thank God that he’s given us the ability to enjoy it all (Ecclesiastes 5:19–20). It’s a place for celebration, laughter, and joy, where we gather to feast, sometimes in honor of special occasions, but always in honor of the Founder of the feast, Jesus Christ.

Celebration also serves as an important form of worship. Take a look at King David’s reaction when the ark of the covenant is returned to Jerusalem. Scripture says there was a mighty celebration, and David along with the whole house of Israel “were making merry before the Lord” with a variety of songs and instruments (2 Samuel 6:5, RSV). And King David “danced before the Lord with all his might” (2 Samuel 6:14). Similarly, the prophet Jeremiah describes scenes of God’s people celebrating with songs of thanksgiving (Jeremiah 30:19) and playing tambourines and dancing (31:4). Praising the Lord through singing and dancing is pictured here as worshipful and fun.

Whether it’s during corporate worship at church or a dance party in the living room with your toddlers (a frequent occurrence in our house), Christians today have access to this same kind of play-filled celebration, worshipping God using our voices, our bodies, and the many talents he’s given us, to celebrate our Father for who he is.

Growth

Play is most often defined as an activity without a planned outcome. Taking a bike ride without the goal of losing weight. Learning guitar without auditioning for a band. Making a cooking video without hoping to go viral on social media. But that doesn’t mean that play doesn’t have a purpose. A lot is going on while we’re having fun.

Fred Rogers said, “Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children, play is serious learning. . . . Playing is a way to solve problems and to express feelings. In fact, play is the real work of childhood.”

A lot of discovery happens during play. Often our preferred forms of play develop into our hobbies or even our career paths. My seven-year-old daughter loves drawing, and while drawing is simply fun for her, it’s also developing a God-given talent she’ll likely be able to use for his glory one day. In that sense, her play does indeed have an ultimate purpose.

When I bake, I believe I’m glorifying God by developing my gift for making delectable foods—and what better way to honor the Giver of the food and my gifting?

Research shows that adults need play, too.

Research shows that adults need play, too. Laughter, for instance, is a potent form of stress relief. My boss has a gift for bringing laughter to the workplace. On busy days in our clinic, she will tell us stories that leave many of us belly-laughing. The rest of the work day doesn’t seem quite so bad afterward. Play is also closely associated with flow, that blissful state when you’re focused on an activity so deeply that you forget to look at the time. Flow sometimes happens at work when we’re invested in a project using skills we particularly enjoy. Perhaps it’s one way that God gave us to make labor more enjoyable.

Play often brings us closer to others. Joining groups with similar interests—whether a board game group, gardening club, or knitting team—builds camaraderie. Several of my coworkers and I regularly exchange recipes and baking advice and taste test each other’s work, while some of my wife’s most meaningful friendships developed in a quilting club at a local community center. As an added benefit, it’s easier to work through conflicts with others, especially at work, when you are friends. Not to mention, playful people are just more fun to be around.

Prioritizing Play

For children and adults, play is not optional; it’s crucial if we are to be emotionally, mentally, and spiritually healthy. I am the first to admit that I have spent most of my adult life not playing like I should. I have a personality of many names: high performance, task oriented, self-starter, driven. For people like me, the word fun strikes an unfamiliar tone. Pausing to play sometimes makes me feel guilty. The desire to always be accomplishing something makes it nearly impossible for me to relax.

Recently, a man at my church told me that he and his wife have made it a priority to take weekends to go kayaking and camping. “It’s hard,” he told me, “because I always feel like I need to be doing something productive or spending time with the grandkids. But I’ve had to give myself permission to have fun.”

I understand. In my family, we put play on the calendar because we know that if we don’t, another project will steal away the time. Wednesday night is family game night, Friday night is movie night, and most nights of the week we read together.

God has already given us permission to play. In fact, since well-ordered play glorifies our Creator, play should be a discipline, much like the many spiritual disciplines we’re called to practice.

Free to Play

God built a desire for play into his creation.

God built a desire for play into his creation, which means believers and unbelievers alike can play. But of all people, Christians should be the most playful because at the heart of well-ordered play, we find joy: a Holy Spirit-given, exultant happiness in the believer (Romans 14:17; 1 Thessalonians 1:6–7). When God’s people play, we can do so knowing that “for freedom Christ has set us free” (Galatians 5:1). We have not only been freed from something—slavery to sin—but we have been freed to something—new life in Jesus. That new life involves many wonderful blessings, not least of which is the joy of playing for his glory. Our play, when rightly ordered, is a show of delight in and thankfulness for God’s gift of freedom to his children.

God also intends for play to be part of life after Christ’s return. Our play now is a picture of our hope in Christ’s second coming. This may seem counterintuitive in a fallen world wracked by man’s sinfulness. But we live assured that the world will be made right when Christ brings it to its glorious conclusion. We honor God by playing, experiencing the freedom of resting, celebrating, and growing for God’s glory—and we do it confidently anticipating the return of our King.