Dave Brisbin | 7.23.17
If God is a playful God—as mirrored by Jesus who loved to play with children, tell colorful and funny stories, eat and drink with his friends—how are we to react and respond? How does this notion that God doesn’t live life as a duty to perform but a playground to be experienced change the shape of our journeys? Why is playfulness so important? Think on it: to be in a playful mood and mode is to be tender and open…to be vulnerable. It’s a place of the surrender of control, a suspension of disbelief and reason and defense. It’s far too frightening a place for many of us to go, who don’t feel safe enough to be playful.
If God is a playful God—as mirrored by Jesus who loved to play with children, tell colorful and funny stories, eat and drink with his friends—how are we to react and respond? How does this notion that God doesn’t live life as a duty to perform but a playground to be experienced change the shape of our journeys? Why is playfulness so important? Think on it: to be in a playful mood and mode is to be tender and open…to be vulnerable. It’s a place of the surrender of control, a suspension of disbelief and reason and defense. It’s far too frightening a place for many of us to go, who don’t feel safe enough to be playful.
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The arch enemy of playfulness is control, and control is always the foot soldier of fear. We can’t be playful, childlike until we know that we are loved. This is the essence of the Good News: that we are loved enough that being playful is not only possible, but the only possible response…which is why the emblem of Kingdom, the living out of God’s playful love, the proof of that love is always “such as these,” those who, like children, are free to live and love playfully.
