A pastor has told of being so nervous as he officiated at his brother’s wedding that instead of saying, “Let us pray,” he said, “Let us play.”  Actually, it was the perfect thing to say because at the heart of a marriage, there should be a playfulness, a delight, a joy. It was the perfect prayer: “Let us play!”
         
          Really, it is a perfect prayer for most all of us any day. We just have this way of running ourselves ragged, working ourselves to death, taking ourselves and everything else so seriously, worrying ourselves sick, and wearing ourselves out until there is little joy or delight to anything we do. If ever that is to change, we need to learn to play a bit.
         
          As a matter of fact, it is a very religious thing to do. When King David brought the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem, the scriptures tell us that he played before the Lord -- he danced and sang and had a marvelous time of it. When God described how he would renew Jerusalem, he conveyed the glory of it by saying that the children would play in the streets. The Psalmist tells us that God made the whale for the fun of it -- to watch it play in the sea. There is a playfulness at the heart of creation and life itself.
         
          Someone has put it like this: “What is the wind doing in the hayfield? What is Victoria Falls up to, or the surf along the
coast of Maine? What about the fire going wild in the belly of the stove, or the rain pounding on the roof like the Hallelujah
Chorus, or the violet on the window sill leaning toward the sun? What, for that matter, is God up to, getting the whole show
started in the first place? Hurling the stars around like rice at a wedding, gathering the waters together into the seas like a woman gathering shells, calling forth all the creatures of the earth and the air like a man calling ‘swing your partner’, at the hoedown.”  Playfulness reflects the very glory of God and is a form of faith.

LET US PLAY!!