Recently I’ve been thinking about that verse that goes “Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for God has already approved what you do” and how there is a holy injunction there to enjoy life. Thread.

My whole life I heard sermons claiming good things were evil and evil was good, framing pleasure as wickedness, demonizing enjoyment of life, issuing warnings about cheerful things rapidly becoming idols. But those people — they were wrong. Joy is holy.

I spent so many years feeling like shit because I played World of Warcraft when I should’ve been reading scripture more, or playing Pokémon when I should’ve prayed more. But reading WoW side quests was my Bible; concocting the perfect 6-creature team was my prayer.

I was taking an active part in the world that God — if real — had destined for humankind to enjoy and flourish and create in long before the invention of the printing press mass-produced personal Bibles and prayer became a forced daily chore.

When I wake up next to my beautiful girlfriend smiling, it is holy. When I spend hours happily playing Nintendo Switch, it is spiritual. When I binge watch Tru Blood or She-Ra instead of practicing mandated religious individualistic ritualism, there Spirit is.

The same people who always said “God is for you, not against you” are the same people who always framed God as being against our most natural, inherent desires for creativity, imagination, sex, entertainment, joy. This narrative needs to be re-written.

The same people who said “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father,” are the same people who act like good things can only originate from their nebulous idea of Satan or the Devil or Hell. This injustice needs urgent re-framing.