Enjoy Yourself

 Every morning,

As part of my morning routine,

I tell my sleepy mom:

“Have a good day, mom.”

She groggily replies:

“You have a good day, too, Dee.”

“I love you,” I respond.

“I love you, too,” she says.

And then I quietly close her bedroom door,

Walk into the kitchen where my dad is sitting after having made me breakfast,

And give my dad a hug.

“Have a good day.”

“You too.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

And then he often adds,

“Throw the paper in the garage for me.”

 

Yesterday morning, though, he threw in a new one.

After our normal morning exchange,

He very simply said,

“Enjoy yourself.”

 

“Enjoy yourself,” I thought.

“Is that something I normally do?”

 

I try to have good days.

I try to make it through my days getting work accomplished

While also loving people the best I can.

But do I enjoy myself?

Do I find pleasure in what I’m doing?

 

Ecclesiastes declares that everything is meaningless.

All our toil.

All our labor.

All of it will pass away.

Life will keep going without us.

Therefore, ^“There is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God. A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? To the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge, and happiness.” (from Ecclesiastes 3).

 

I want to receive God’s gift of satisfaction.

I want to do more than just go through the motions of life very seriously.

I want to do more than battle against sin.

I want to embrace goodness and enjoy life,

For it is mine to be lived.

 

Dear God: Help us to enjoy ourselves as we live with you. Help us not to be selfish in this pursuit of happiness but to live in community with one another, building one another up, and encouraging one another on the journey. You have given us one life to live. Help us to live it to the fullest, always growing, always opening more into the fullness of who you created us to be. Amen.