Two Games We Must Not Play

“Grandpa, will you play with us?”

I heard that a lot over 8 days of having all 4 of my grandchildren under one roof.

Of course, my answer was almost always “Of course I will!”—with the only exception being when I was in the middle of preparing a meal, cleaning up after a meal, or needing a short break from the previous episode of playing.

It is my somewhat humble opinion that we grownups don’t play nearly enough.

By that I mean that we often take ourselves and our circumstances far too seriously.

I read a quote this morning from Neil Anderson that I wanted to slightly edit. He said,

“You occupy a unique role as an ambassador for Christ where you work and live. These are your mission fields and you are the worker God has appointed for the harvest there.”

I’m reasonably certain Anderson was thinking of Matthew 9:37-38 when he wrote those words.

“He [Jesus] said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields.’”

My desired edit for Anderson’s quote would have changed “work and live” to “work, live, and play.”

There is so much heaviness in the world that I just think we need to approach all of life with a more playful attitude—even the serious things.

Mary Poppins sang, “A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down in a most delightful way.”

Proverbs 17:22 says, “A cheerful heart is good medicine …”

I think we could safely say that the playfulness (cheerfulness of heart) that we bring to all of life’s circumstances will be good medicine for everyone around us.

That being said, there are a couple of games that I refuse to play and I suggest that no one else should play them either.

The first is the Gotcha Game. In the Gotcha Game, the players look for someone to mess up. They look for someone to criticize. They look for someone to call out. The goal of the Gotcha Game is to highlight flaws (either real or imagined) for the purpose of making another person look bad so that they will get what they deserve—in the opinion of the finger-pointer.

The second is the Whatabout Game. “Whataboutism” according to dictionary.com is “a conversational tactic in which a person responds to an argument or attack by changing the subject to focus on someone else’s misconduct, implying that all criticism is invalid because no one is completely blameless.”

We could also call the Whatabout Game the Yeahbut Game. Someone criticizes “my guy/viewpoint/value” and I respond with “Yeah, but your guy/viewpoint/value is worse!”

It can also be my excuse for playing Gotcha as long as someone else did it first.

These games have no winners. Period.

Here’s a good way to determine if a game is a good game to play: does it contribute to a cheerful heart for everyone concerned? Does it lighten everyone’s load? Does it pour cool water or gasoline on the smoldering embers of discontent?

Play more, but play wisely and well.

Be amazing today, my friend.