When I was a kid in school, I loved recess, almost as much as I love reading. I loved the merry-go-round. I ran as fast as I could go, pushing it around and round, and then jumped on to ride. I loved to ride bikes, racing down the street with the wind blowing in my hair. I got my first bicycle for my 8th birthday, a used girl’s bike that Mama bought for $10 from the neighbor girl up the street.
Most of the time though all I did was read. I devoured every book I found. I read at least 3 books a week from the library in addition to school-assigned reading. I read the writing on the back of the cereal box while I ate breakfast. I read as we drove along the highway going to my grandpa’s house.
Several years ago, I took my 11-year-old grandson with me to a doctor’s appointment and when the doctor asked me what I did for recreation, I had to stop to think for a minute, but my grandson piped up, “Facebook, Mimi.” Really, he thought all I did for recreation was Facebook?
I used to work on computers for other people. I watch TV while I play around on the computer, reading my email and communicating on Facebook but I wonder, is my only recreation Facebook? Pretty sad, isn’t it?
I read the Bible on my computer, too. I also have the Bible on my cell phone and on my Kindle Fire, but I have at least 10 real leather Bibles of different translations. Reading is one of my recreations too, but my grandson considers that as schoolwork or part of my work as a writer, and not enjoyment.
There is a balance though. Paul himself said, “For bodily exercise profits a little: but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.” I Timothy 4:8 NKJV
Exercising the physical body has value, but we must pump our spiritual muscles too so they won’t shrivel up and waste away to nothing.