Type 2
Fun

Shea laid it out like this. Type 1 fun is instant satisfaction. It is fun at the time, but there is not much there to look back on. Type 2 fun is the other kind. It is going to be painful. You may suffer. But when you look back on it, you smile, and you cannot wait to do it again.

He sees Type 2 fun all over the things he is passionate about, and all over the Christian life. He named three things he appreciates about it. It pushes you beyond your comfort zone. The struggle is better with others. And it is hard in the moment, but meaningful afterward. That is the road map for the next four mornings.

Here is something to chew on before we start. Open your Bible anywhere and look at whose stories got told. Nobody got their story written down for the easy stretches. It was always the hardships: men and women pushed out of their comfort zone, leaning on God and on each other, and something amazing coming out the other side. That is Type 2 fun with eternity on it.

Backcountry western hunting hurts. You walk miles of terrain no sane person goes into. You gain elevation and lose it, cross rivers, climb over downed timber, and suck air like it is being stolen from you. It is burning hot, then freezing cold. The wind blisters and the rain soaks you to the bone. You carry everything on your back, and if you are lucky, you carry even more weight out. Shea put it this way: everything in the wilderness wants you to go home.

Then, when your body starts to hurt, your brain jumps in and makes it worse. You can’t do this. You’re not good enough. You’re not supposed to be here. You will fail. You will learn a lot about yourself in very little time.

Following Jesus works the same way. It is not a battle to follow him. It is the battles that come from following him: dying to self and turning from sin, finding yourself at odds with the ways of this world, needing courage to resist temptation and stand firm, and a voice in your head saying you are not enough for Jesus. But Shea found comfort in this. When everything feels like it is against you, it may be because you are following the Word and not the world.

Hebrews 6:1 says to stop going over the basics again and again and grow up in your understanding. There is a time to step out of your comfort zone, and it comes after you have had some time to mature. So talk to other believers. Study your Bible. Listen to other sermons. And if you really want out of your comfort zone, Shea has a suggestion: preach a sermon.

Shea and Jess did not get anything on that hunt. But they came home with a ton of memories and stories, and they got time together as husband and wife, not as dad and mom, for the first time since they became parents. Meanwhile friends of theirs, Emily and Donnie, each filled a cow moose tag and now get to share the meat and the stories with friends and family. Nobody packs out a moose alone.

Jesus followers are not meant to do this alone either. It is our community and fellowship in Christ that encourages us, helps keep our lives pointed toward him, and helps us persevere through the suffering this world throws at us.

Hebrews 10 comes right out of the change from the Old Covenant to the New. Now that Christ has died for our sins, we do not need a high priest to make a sacrifice for us. Jesus became the sacrifice, and he is the High Priest. He has given us the Spirit to live in us, so we do not need someone else to talk to God for us. Now the Spirit speaks through us. And one of the ways he does it is through the words we give each other.

Shea’s sister in Christ, Cari, has a phrase she says a lot: “When we are in Christ, we fight from a place of victory, not towards it.” It reminds him his soul has been saved, the price for his sin is paid, and Jesus will be there through his darkest hours. That is what we do for each other. Pray for each other. Talk to each other. Worship with each other. Iron sharpens iron. Shea said he has survived every one of his worst days because of Jesus and the people Jesus sent into his life.

The ending of a Type 2 adventure is something special. You get something to share, and you get to go home. Shea gets stories, like walking a half marathon with packs in one day and then getting to come home and wake up to see Calvin. Or he gets advice, like change your water filter every season if you do not want giardia.

Then he told the truth about his week. From a broad-strokes view, it was a bad one. He was a solo dad while Jess was away on a business trip, chasing a little monkey who was wrecking the house, while he prepared a sermon, wrote bids, and finished a project. And their dog, the good boy who had been with them since the beginning of them, quit eating. The vet found cancer through his lungs and body.

But with a change in perspective, the same week looked different. He was not alone. He got a whole week of taking care of and playing with his boy. He got to spend his dog’s last days with him. And he got to stand side by side with his wife when they said goodbye.

Hebrews 12:11 does not pretend the hard part is fun. It says plainly that discipline is painful while it is happening. But it does not stop there. Afterward there is a harvest. The hard seasons are where God trains us, and they do not stay hard forever.

Every season of the Christian life hands you a testimony. Your testimony is the story of someone saved by grace. It is the time you chose what was right over what was easy. It is the time you forgave someone who hurt you deeply instead of letting a grudge, a broken heart, or hatred eat you alive. It is the story of letting go of sin and turning to God to heal and comfort you.

We do not tell those stories to say, “Look how much better I am.” We tell them to say, “He is the reason for who I am, and he gets the glory.” So do not hide them out of shame or fear of what people will think. Use them to worship God and to help somebody else step out of the ways of this world and follow him. Your testimony is his light shining through you.

Do you remember coming to Jesus? It was fun at first. You felt alive. You had fire and a new direction. Then the world came back, and following him got hard. That is not a sign you did it wrong. Choosing to follow Jesus, accepting his grace and the salvation he paid for, is the start of the greatest adventure of your lifetime. You will have hard times. You will lose people close to you. You will fall down. He is with you, to lift you up, protect you, heal you, give you rest, and lead you in the right direction.

Look at Hebrews 12:2. Because of the joy awaiting him, Jesus endured the cross. That is Type 2 at its deepest, and because he already won, he uses our hard seasons to grow us, gives us his people to walk with, and turns our endurance into a testimony of his faithfulness. And at the end of our time in these earthly bodies, we get to go home, and rest in greener pastures with our Shepherd watching over us.