Last night I had some guys over to my house for a game night. We played a game that I have appreciated since my freshman year of college. After observing how excited I was to play it last night, I have come to realize that it is my all-time favorite board game; Shadows Over Camelot.
No, it is not like Dungeons & Dragons. Essentially you play as the knights of the roundtable, all working together against the game. This may sound like a simple task, but the game fights hard and plays dirty. Winning is no small feat.
But I love this game. I love the camaraderie that it fosters. I love the opportunities it presents to teach the values and Christ-seeking character traits of the knights of the roundtable. For me the game carries memories of my freshman year in college, talking with "Mack" for hours about the knights. He taught me a lot about those subtle yet important character traits that become a man of God.
These are all important elements that combine to create my strong appreciation for this game. However, as far as the game in itself goes, the thing that I most enjoy about it is the team aspect; it truly is all against the game. We all win together, or we all lose together.
I was reading a book last fall wherein the writer presented the notion that all of our society's strongly acclaimed "healthy competition" is anything but. Before you click the back button on your browser, let me challenge you to at least think about this. Our society holds a lot of values that we have grown up with and accept because we have been taught that they are natural and good. Christ came to shake up our perceptions of "natural" and "good." He wanted to give us the opportunity to see these things as he sees them. So please, let's at least explore this idea for the sake of double-checking our preconceptions. What if this is one of those areas that has us all fooled into living a damaging lie?
What if there is no such thing as "healthy competition"?
What is the point of competition anyway? In every case one competes with the intention of either proving oneself to be the best, or perhaps merely discovering where one sits on the spectrum of ability and skill.
Jesus didn't get caught up in these games, and he shut it down when it came up among his disciples:
"An argument started among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest. Jesus, knowing their thoughts, took a little child and had him stand beside him. Then he said to them, 'Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. For he who is least among you all--he is the greatest.'" (Luke 9:46-48)
The disciples, in an attempt to at least maintain some status, try to set up an us-and-them wall:
"'Master,' said John, 'we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we tried to stop him, because he is not one of us.'"
But Jesus doesn't bite:
"'Do not stop him,' Jesus said, 'for whoever is not against you is for you.'" (Luke 9:49-50)
Whoever is not against you is for you. So why do we keep trying to turn all these friends into enemies by pitting ourselves against them? Why do we make our own superiority more important than our relationships?
And what is so great about us anyway? What good is it to prove that I am accomplished in some external area of my life? God says, "The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7). Who really cares where I fit on man's silly spectrum of accomplishment?! Not God.
Paul says, "If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else, for each one should carry his own load" (Galatians 6:3-5). We are not called to compare ourselves to others, but to our own selves. Only then, when we have determined that we are adequate to the task that has been given to us, can we be proud. Yet, it is not a pride that stands out among others. Instead it is an inner confidence in our standing before God. It is the humbled understanding that God's guiding and steadying hand is the thing that enables us to endure the load we carry.
I don't see much encouragement in scripture for this so-called "healthy competition." Everything I see in scripture talks about setting others above yourself, serving over being served, taking pride in low positions when the world would have you think highly of yourself.
Don't get me wrong. I think it is still possible to enjoy a game that involves winners and losers. What does concern me is that those people who push so fervently for others to participate in their "healthy competition" are often the ones for whom competition is a major stumbling block. It is precisely those people who are least capable of maintaining healthy lives when in competitive atmospheres.
Think about it. Then go find some way to edify someone else instead of finding a way to dominate them. Let me know how that works for you.
