Games and Jesus

Since I was a little kid, I have always loved games. Board games, card games, video games, anything that I could focus on, strategize, plot and plan out a path to victory. For a large portion of my life games defined who I was. They were not just something that I did to pass the time, they were how I derived meaning, pleasure, and purpose in my life. My sense of self-worth and identity were extracted through winning games. When I would sit down and play, I was not just sitting down for an hour of pleasure or leisure, I was sitting down to prove that my life had meaning. 

With stakes that high, where my very sense of well-being, of happiness and contentment were on the line in every game I played, you would be right to guess that I was competitive. I played to win--cut-throat, and hostile, doing every legal thing within the game to ensure my victory and the defeat of my opponent. This way of playing never used to bother me. It used to seem acceptable, like a normal mindset of one who desired to win. But the more that I submitted myself to Christ and his teachings, the more this attitude bothered me. The more I saw how selfish and wrong it was that I couldn't care less about any one or anything in those moments other than winning. 

The game that I was playing at the time (and still am playing occasionally) was Settlers of Catan. There is enough strategy and constant action in Settlers to make it a fun, exciting board game, and it quickly became a favorite. At first, like every game I had ever played before it, I played to win, which meant I played to make others lose. I did not cheat or break the rules, but I did every dirty, hostile thing that the game allowed in order to secure my victory. If I noticed you were going toward a certain location on the board and I could cut you off by building a couple of roads in your path, I would. If I had a monopoly card which allowed me to draw all of a certain resource, I sometimes would trade you those resources first, and then monopolize them. If I needed a Brick, and I knew that you had one, and you wouldn't trade it to me, I would use the knight card to move the robber onto one of your hexes and try to steal the brick from you.  These are things that I would never do in my real life or personal affairs, but within the context of the game, I did them freely. But what started happening was that I would win, and feel unhappy. The need that I was trying to meet was somehow lost when I achieved that victory in a way which I felt did not glorify Christ.  I also started to notice that if I had a fun time in the process of playing a game, engaging with people, talking to them during the game, enjoying their company, it didn't matter to me if I won or lost. I enjoyed the process more than the outcome, and I had that satisfied, happy feeling after those games, even when I lost. 

This got me thinking about why I was playing the games in the first place, and it basically ended up starting a war within myself. The war being that I did not want to bring harm to others, but I felt this intense desire to win, to exert myself over others in competition. 

I struggled for a time with this, sometimes submitting to the kinder, gentler way of playing, other times playing to win, until eventually I decided to just play the game as kindly as possible. To never cut someone off, to never rob them with the robber, to play in the friendliest way that I could, and people noticed. They started to ask me questions about why I was playing that way, why I was moving the robber to an empty hexagon or even putting it on myself instead of putting it on other people, and I was able to share the gospel with them when they asked, and to tell them that I got tired of feeling bad when I won by playing aggressively, when I played for the throat. 

Two times I was able to share the gospel with people because of how I played. And it was very satisfying, and brought me a lot of joy. I even won several games playing like that, where I did not do one single hostile act in the entire game. But the war wasn't over inside of me, and sometimes I just wanted to sit down and play to win. I wanted to conquer others and win the game, not play softly to share the gospel with them. This was a frustrating thing for me to discover within myself, and I wish I could tell you that I remained content to just play softly in order to share the gospel, but after a few more games, I begin to feel yoked by my conscience. And I became frustrated because my desire to win was competing with my desire to be kind to others. 

I played a game of Settlers last night, and I said to myself before hand, "I want to play to win." I warned the other players in advance that I was going to be playing aggressively, and I did, right from the start, immediately making an enemy in the game.  But the player I had been attacking early on began to say some of the things that she was feeling, that I was picking on her and playing mean spiritedly,  and I felt terrible during the game, so terrible that I stopped playing aggressively mid-game and apologized to her. I moved the robber off of her hex into the dessert, and I left her (and the other players ) alone for the rest of the game. I felt guilty about my actions, disappointed in myself once again that I had let my own selfish desires override another persons feelings.  

Ecclesiastes 4:4 (New American Standard)

And I have seen that every labor and every skill which is done is the result of rivalry between a man and his neighbor. This too is vanity and striving after wind.