fill our day and create a framework of life based on problems and solutions( Dorothy Sayers, The Mind of the Maker: The Expression of Faith). Consequently, our hobbies feel unnecessary. We wonder what we accomplished by spending an afternoon with a fishing pole and an empty net.
In an effort to legitimize our inefficient hobbies, we attempt to dress them as solutions: My paper crafting can earn extra money. Running will take off some pounds. These puzzles will keep my mind sharp. We couch our leisure in utility by making it the answer to a host of problems— our boredom, failing minds, loneliness, health, and the list goes on. While hobbies can offer many of these benefits, we don’ t have to shove them into the problem-and-solution dichotomy, for our God doesn’ t operate that way.
" While chasing efficiency and productivity, we’ ve overlooked the quiet instruction God has bound up within our hobbies."
When God created the world, he encountered no problem to solve. Before the trees sprang up from the ground, before the otters splashed in the water, and before Adam breathed through his nostrils, God was perfectly content.
Because we’ re made in the image of God, we too can create and enjoy absent of any measurable need. The song we composed that dances in our head alone still holds value even when it’ s not topping charts or going viral on the internet.
The wood-burning project we labored over can matter to the Lord even when it doesn’ t check any boxes of usefulness. The collection of bobbleheads on our desk may not fix any problems in our life, but that doesn’ t mean its existence is inconsequential. You and I can follow our Maker in creating and playing simply for the love of it.
But Learning Is Supposed to Be Hard
While chasing efficiency and productivity, we’ ve overlooked the quiet instruction God has bound up within our hobbies. We know cracking open a textbook or a theology book will fill our head with knowledge, but we forget the ways God utilizes every piece of his world to teach— even our play. The ancient Greeks had a handle on this, as they believed in two different kinds of knowledge. The first they called discursive thought. This encompasses the posture of a student who actively searches, examines, and draws conclusions. We can see this play out within the more academic parts of our hobbies. We memorize bird calls, pore over the historical details of past generations, and learn new facts in our pleasure reading( even this book!). This kind of activity can be fun and fulfilling on its own, yet the Greeks believed another form of knowledge also exists called contemplative vision. This knowledge isn’ t gained through effort but through the passive reception of the mind, which“ conceives that which it sees”( Josef Pieper, Leisure: The Basis of Culture).
Our favorite pastimes provide us with far more
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