Who’s Playing Games?

What do you do for fun? In my family it has become a family joke, that ‘Aunt Mindi is no fun.’ Anyone that knows me at all knows that in general I just don’t like to play games. I don’t possess much athletic ability so I don’t participate in sports. Though I am usually a patient person, I get impatient waiting for people to take their turn when playing a board game. That, and the fact that I just don’t see the purpose of moving a trinket around a board. And when I see or hear someone using a computer to play a game all I can think is ‘waste of a computer.’ There just doesn’t seem to be any point to it (for me.) I think they have a word for me… fuddy-duddy.
I do enjoy watching a variety of sports. From little league to high school, college and professional sports, I do enjoy them. One would just never catch me playing them.

1 Timothy 4:8 (CEB) While physical training has some value, training in holy living is useful for everything. It has promise for this life now and the life to come.

I have to admit though when it comes to the idea of family ‘game night,’ I have always been a stick-in-the-mud. It could be the childhood ‘trauma’ of having to sit and hold what felt like an entire deck of cards in my two little hands while having to add yet more to my collection. It could be that I felt trapped once I started playing because one game never seemed to be enough for everyone else. When my grandma would visit that is what we would do; my mom, brother and me. I can still remember sitting at the kitchen table as a little girl for what seemed like an eternity. It just was not fun for me. As I’ve grown older, I realize that ‘fun’ comes in all forms and I prefer the quiet kind. As a Christian though, it’s important for us to have fun in life – whatever that means to us – as long as it is godly entertainment.

God wants us to enjoy life and to share that joy of living with others. Whether it’s playing games, enjoying movies, going to concerts…or whether it’s just the fun of being a jokester – we need to show the world that we DO enjoy life.
It’s fine with me that my family has fun, making fun, of my lack of interest in fun. I laugh with them. I don’t even try to deny it. I know that my fun is not their fun. If I cannot see a purpose for doing something, well, it just isn’t ‘fun’ for me.

Recently, one morning in Sunday School class, the teacher made the case for having fun – now I see the purpose. It is to show the world that Christians do know how to have fun. Most people believe Christians are fuddy-duddies, they need to see us having fun and enjoying life. So in my new resolve to be more fun I went online to search for Christian games. My search led me to ChristiansUnite and CBNgames, and I found a couple of games that I actually do enjoy. I learned that I too can enjoy playing games on the computer.

Ecclesiastes 2:3 (CEB) I tried cheering myself with wine and by embracing folly—with wisdom still guiding me—until I might see what is really worth doing in the few days that human beings have under heaven.

Shhh…Don’t tell my family I played games on the computer and had fun – I’d hate to ruin theirs.