Rules of the Game

When Tressa and Angelynn were little, our favorite games were ones that we made up. In fact, we invented two new sports that really should have been added to the Olympics. While these sports didn’t catch on with anyone else, they provided us provided us with hundreds of hours of fun… and got us fussed at a time or two for breaking stuff.

• With Tressa, the sport was “Roofball.” You throw the ball up on the roof, and whoever catches it when it bounces off wins a point— five points wins the game. Tressa got points for “direct catches,” those where the ball came off the roof. Dad only got points for “indirect catches” off the rebound where the ball first bounced off Tressa’s hands. We also played Dogeball, Whiffleball and other games, but Roof Ball was our favorite.
  
• With Angelynn, the sport was "Hall Soccer." It consisted of closing all the doors in the hall (of our old house) except the ones on the end and then kicking a nerf ball through the open door to score a goal. Not only was ricocheting the ball off the walls and ceiling permitted, it was expected! We played other games— though not much Whiffleball. Giving Angelynn a stick to swing at people wasn’t a wise move!

Angelynn almost always won our Hall Soccer battles, and Tressa usually won Roofball. The reason for that was not that I am not competitive by nature (far from it). Neither was it because I had grown old and slow and fat. Well, I had, but that wasn’t the reason I lost. I always lost because the girls were always the ones in charge of making up the rules of the game. Every new situation that came up would necessitate them making a new rule. Putting a spin on the ball before you throw it on the roof is illegal. Blocking a shot with your hand is OK if you’re short. And so it went. If the rules need to b changed in the middle of the game, then so much the better.

There is something fundamentally flawed about allowing the players of the game the right to make up the rules as they go along. But that is where we are in our culture today. The rules of right and wrong are constantly shifting, morphing to make it easier on the players. Things clearly right and wrong a generation or two ago are no longer so. Marriage is no longer marriage; life is no longer life. We demands freedom to lives any way we please, and so we change the rules.

Jeremiah said, “I know, O Lord, that a man’s life is not his own; it is not for man to direct his steps” (Jer 10:23). Petersen’s The Message renders Jeremiah’s words like this, “I know, God, that mere mortals can’t run their own lives, That men and women don’t have what it takes to take charge of life.” No, we don’t have what it takes to take charge of life. “Here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” (Eccl 12:13). Let’s keep in the game and leave the rules to God.