So remember last week I shared my experience of my shopping trip to Shopko and I had returned to my car and noticed these two young girls approaching the car parked next to me. I could tell they were so excited because they had just purchased “The Game of Life” board game. Well, in addition to my reflections last week, I would also like to add that I was so intrigued by their excitement that I went back into the store to check the game. Why would a couple young girls be so excited about playing “The Game of Life?”
So back to the toy department I went and sure enough I found the game. I took it down off the shelf and I began to search the box for a description of the objective of the game. Guess what; after carefully scanning every side of the box, I found nothing—no explanation of the objective of the game anywhere on the box. I began to wonder why the girls would be so excited about buying a game and not even having a clue of what the game was about.
OK, so maybe the girls researched the game on the internet, (as did I after leaving the store), and found this description: “Choosing whether to attend college or start a career out of high school is tough enough, but your choices allow you to reap the rewards and emerge as the richest player in The Game of Life. Luck plays a role in the game’s outcome, but your quest is to retire as the game’s wealthiest player.”
I could’ve figured, right? If you live in America the objective of this “game of life” is to attend the right college, find the highest paying job, and hopefully with some good luck you can retire as the richest player.
Well, thankfully the real game of life is different. Thankfully the real game of life comes with a manual that clearly explains the purpose of the game of life. In Acts 17 Paul would proclaim this purpose for life, 24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27 God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.”
And not only is God’s purpose for our lives to rediscover our lost knowledge of God, he also gave us a job to do. Again from the Apostle Paul in II Corinthians 5, “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.”
May it be said of us as Christians living in America that we understand the reason why God created us and saved us. And may each one us, drawn by the Holy Spirit, be so excited to delight ourselves in the Lord with all our hearts and may we be filled with humility and enthusiasm as we serve as Christ’s ambassadors. For it’s in pointing people to Jesus that we win the crown of life!
In it to win it, Mike