One of my favorite spiritual practices is one you don't hear much about: the practice of play. But it seems an appropriate topic to consider during summer.

Play is an important part of what I call Sabbath Simplicity—a sanely paced, God-focused lifestyle. To live in Sabbath Simplicity means we have slowly crafted a life-giving way of life—and it may look different in your life than it does in mine.

But this lifestyle includes spiritual practices that create some space for God. So along with prayer and meditating on God's word, I include other spiritual disciplines like service and play. I don't serve all the time; I don't play all the time. It is the rhythm between these two things that creates a cadence I can dance to.

Play helps us fight the temptation of sins that Jesus prohibited in his teaching—things like worry, fear, or lack of joy. You've perhaps not thought of play as a spiritual discipline. But then again, perhaps you didn't consider worry a sin, even though the ...