Does Embracing Play Just Tether Me to the Perishable?

There is less than one month until Created to Play comes out into the world! Surrounding the release, I’m going to be tackling some questions on this newsletter about play. If you have any you’d like me to consider, reply in the comments or send me a message!

The Scriptures continually remind us this world is not our home. Paul exhorts his readers to abstain from passions of the flesh, by calling them sojourners and exiles (1 Pet. 2:11). Hebrews reminds us that like the faithful brothers and sisters before us, we are strangers and exiles on this earth (Heb. 11:13). John tells us this world is passing away and Paul says our true citizenship is in heaven. I can continue on about the warnings in Matthew Jesus makes about storing up for ourselves treasures on earth as well as the straightforward proclamation that we are not of this world (Matt. 6:19-21; John 15:19).

This leaves us with some uncomfortable questions. Will embracing the play of this world only tether us closer to a world that is passing away? Are these the kind of connections we should be cinching tighter?

Now we could answer these questions in a lot of ways. We could look through each of these verses within each of their contexts, pull out the definitions used for world (which would be an excellent activity), but today I want to tackle the question from a different angle.

Does embracing play tether us more tightly to the passing world? In one way yes, it has to. Deepening our joy and delight in something will only make it hurt more when it is taken away or damaged. And it will be taken away in this fallen world.

All the wonderful experiences I’ve spent camping and hiking the country’s forests makes my heart hurt more when I hear that our country has opened up so much forest land for logging. My deepening love of being out on the water in a kayak has made me feel particularly more grieved to hear the mining opening up near the Boundary Waters in Minnesota.

When we play in this world, we do deepen our love for transitory activities. It will all pass away at some point. Eventually every hobby we love to partake in today will at some point no longer even be feasible for our aging bodies. Our fingers may not be able to stitch any longer, and our knees may be no longer to make it through a run. And we will feel that loss deeply.

Yet there’s more than just loss in store, for I’ve found that play tethers me somewhere else at the same time. While it pulls me towards the world that isn’t my home, it also cinches me nearer to the place where I’m headed. It leaves me aching with expectancy for the future—girding me with an eschatological hope of what’s to come, that I may not have had as deeply, had I not allowed myself to humbly play within God’s world .

After all, God never created the earth with all its beauty, joys, and delights to be passing and fleeting. Sin may have put its icy touch on this earth, but it will not stay that way forever. Christ promised to crush the serpent and to bring salvation (Gen 3:15). He promised hope in what was ahead. The recreation of our hearts because of Christ’s death and resurrection is the harbinger of a recreation for this entire earth.

Listen to these words of what is in store:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. ² And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. ³ And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. ⁴ He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

⁵ And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” (Revelation 21:1-5).

Did you hear that? He will make all things new. Creation won’t be lost to the darkness. What is taken will be renewed. What is wasting away will again flourish.

As we humbly delight in God’s gift of play, we will be hit harder with the transience of this world, yet at the same time we will also grow our expectancy for the Lord’s renewal of it. We will groan louder with all creation waiting in futility, and at the same time we will hope all the more in what we cannot yet see. Because our play in this world reminds us that whatever good and beautiful bit of joy we experience now is only a small fragment of what’s to come.

And this brings us to our final tether—again, not to the passing, but to the eternal rock. For our delight in the the gifts of the Lord in this world can pull us nearer to him. These passing joys demonstrate his goodness to his children and the unimaginable beauty of his majesty. They testify of his particular care and compassion; his steady faithfulness and wisdom. They give us one more picture of his love and his tender mercy. As we interact with each of these truths through our play, our hearts not only long for the renewal of the world, but for our Father who will dwell there with us.

Can you imagine it? Our play can give us that chance. We can pull our hearts closer to the needlework, the hiking trail, or the piece of wood in our hands, and we can imagine a world where all is renewed, where all creation sings, and where we get to dwell with the loving, mighty God who gave it all to us.

That world is coming, and it will last forever.

Hey, I’ve got a book coming out next month! If you’re interested in finding out about the ways our hobbies bring us to worship, I’d be honored if you’d check out Created to Play: How Taking Hobbies Seriously Grows Us Spiritually. (You can even download the first chapter today!)