It's Better Than Fun. It's Rewarding.

(Click to listen)

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire.  (Luke 24:32)

Fun was my gold standard growing up.

Everything was measured by how fun it was.

“How was school today?”

“Boring.”

“How was the birthday party?”

“Fun!”

“Would you like to go visit Grandma?”

“Does she have any new toys?”

Yes, it was the old days when we were kicked outside all summer, but I can tell you we weren’t looking for work.  We were looking for ways to have fun.

That’s not so bad when you’re a kid, but when you hit the teenage years it starts to get a little thorny.

I was not a great athlete, but I loved playing sports.  PLAYING sports, not WORKING sports.

“Okay, you wanna play on the basketball team?  Time to run around the gym 500 times.”

“What???  Where’s the fun in that?”

“You need to get a job.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

“You know, you should try to be friends with that guy over there.  He’s new in town.”

“Yeah, but he’s not very fun.”

Good Lord in heaven, if I could only go back in time and take out some of the stupid, I might have been a halfway decent person.

But thank the good Lord in heaven that He reached down and saved me from myself.

And one thing He radically changed is my value system.  I moved away from valuing everything (and everyone) by how much fun it was.

I began to grow into God’s value system, and wow, it was so much better.

Now on the surface, living according to God’s values can seem un-fun, or boring, or even like a lot of work, and for what?

So I want to share with you this one catchy little line that you can use on yourself, or on anyone else who says living for God doesn’t sound very fun.

You can say this:  Fun?  It’s better than fun.  It’s rewarding!

Yes, there is something better than fun.  It’s when something is rewarding.

Man, I sure missed that point in all my growing up years.  I really didn’t work hard at anything except having fun.  I didn’t work hard at school or sports.  I was in the band and was even halfway decent, but since I didn’t think it was all that fun I hardly worked at it, and that’s a shame.

I didn’t even work hard at work, and that got me fired from a couple of jobs, and I probably deserved to be fired from the others.

But thank God when He grabbed me He also instilled in me a work ethic that just wasn’t there before.

And immediately my life began to bloom and bear good fruit.  My relationships improved across the board.  My grades improved.  My satisfaction level grew.  

I was no longer measuring everything by how fun it was.  I wasn’t even thinking about that anymore.  I had a whole new set of measurements to live by, and they were astoundingly better.  

I could go on and on about this, but I’ll just leave you with this one catchy little phrase.

If you ever hear that little voice that says, “Living by God’s values?  That sure doesn’t sound very fun,” you can have this trusty answer at the ready.

It’s better than fun.  It’s rewarding.

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.