The Game of Life
Suppose two people are playing game. Let’s say it is chess. Each has 16 men on the board. As the game proceeds, men are taken as each side tries to endanger the other’s king. Eventually, one of the kings is in checkmate, and the game is over. The players stand up and shake hands. The loser has learned a lot and looks forward to the next game; the winner cannot believe what a loser his opponent was, and looks forward to humiliating him again in the future.
Suppose a group of people were playing a game of Monopoly. They all start buying up properties and charging either other rent. When all the properties are bought up one of them begins bargaining and trading, until he has some monopolies that he can build houses upon. Eventually, a few of them are charging exorbitant rents to each other, just hoping when one rolls the dice that they land on him before he lands on them. One buy one, each ends up in the poor house and out of the game, until eventually the last person wins the game, with everyone else watching. Afterwards they all hit a movie together, the winner being treated by everyone else… the loser possibly holding a grudge.
Suppose you were playing a game of battleship. You are the adult, and you are playing against you child. You always win, but you both play anyway, picking an arrangement of ships that seem least likely to be found, calling out coordinates, hitting your opponent’s ships, sinking them. Eventually, you sink all of your child’s ships. The child is a little frustrated, and so you both go to enjoy some ice cream together.
What do all of these games have in common with life?
Each game has a set of rules. There are winners and there are losers. As with life, eventually the game is over. As our spirits do with this life, the players survive the game. Within a game, a player is artificially limited by rules, and must make choices within those rules. In monopoly, knowing the other’s position isn’t an advantage when all you can do is roll the dice. In chess, knowing your opponents’ position means everything, as you strategize to find checkmate; and when he finally sees you’ll win in 7 moves, he can either check out of the game, or play it through. In battleship, you easily see your opponents’ position if you want to, but that’s cheating… so you spend the game figuring his positions out, patiently and methodically.
But no matter which game you play, no matter what the rules, you live on. In an ultimate sense, your existence is temporarily tied up in the game, but what happens in the game has no real bearing on things. Well, that’s almost true. It has as much bearing as you let it.
It turns out that dying in a game does not really kill you, but it leaves you disappointed. Or it leaves you enlightened. Winning the game, the game still ends… you proceed back to your real life without ever dying in the game, yet transcending the game and leaving it regardless. Sometimes you leave feeling good about yourself; sometimes you just feel contempt for your opponent(s). Hmmm… turns out no matter what your fate in the game, it isn’t your real fate, but it leaves you a little different nonetheless. On the other hand, the change you experience is wrapped in who you are already are. You are the same person, with a little more, or less of something than when you started.
That, my friend is our life. It’s a game. Like a game, it doesn’t determine who we are, but also like a game, it lets us decide who we will be. We can act solely according the rules of the game, and forget our higher self, or we can find a way for our higher self to be reflected back into the game. As it turns out, we all do the latter whether we mean to or not. After all, our real self is what rolls the dice and moves the monopoly piece around the board.
Every wonder why we like to play games? Perhaps it’s because we understand this parallel without truly realizing it? We like to act it out.
Then there is God, the one who provides the game, gives us the rules, lets us play until the end, and discusses the game with us when it is over. It is at that moment where we confirm who we are, who we chose to be on this earth. We discuss how we moved through life, rolled the dice, then made our choices. Some of us seeing gloom while here… others seeing opportunity. Some seeing pain and suffering… others seeing a person for us to love. Some of us dwelling on the cruelty… others dwelling on heroism. Some of us following Jesus, the winner of the game, and others complaining like children, acting like He isn’t there.
When Jesus said He knows does as His Father in Heaven tells Him, He was telling the truth. Jesus was God, in the game. However, in this game, it isn’t about who survives the longest. It is about who can be the most righteous… the most believing of God, the most obedient to Him, and the most zealous for His name. That, my friend was Jesus. He is the Grand Master of righteousness… and why wouldn’t He be? He is the piece God is playing. But here’s the difference between this game and the ones we make up. In this game, God will help us play like Jesus, and where we still fail, if we repent of our mistakes, Jesus will share with us His winnings. Who makes up a game like that?
The atheist is like the person looking across the board and saying to you, “You do not exist. My piece sees your piece, but doesn’t see you, so I don’t believe in you.” He then proceeds to roll the dice and move again… apparently, he is unaware of even himself. But, don’t be discouraged by that. Believe. Obey. Be zealous for God. Watch as His justice plays itself out in front of you, and follow Jesus to His winnings. And when the game is over, he’ll be taking you to the movies. The rest will be sitting around in the dark wondering why everything suddenly got so quiet. Don’t bother waving though, because they won’t see you. Why? Because the lights are out? No. Because they’re eyes are closed.