Jesus says: “Repent and believe the good news.” We say, “Play the Game!”
The Game is the battle within of life and death, love and fear. The goal in the Game is exuberance. When Erik Liddell in the movie, Chariots of Fire (1981) explains to his fearful sister why he runs competitively he says to her:
"Jenny, God made me fast. When I run, I feel God's pleasure. Not to run would be to dishonor Him."
Liddell knew the difference between wreck-creation and re-creation. Everything he ever did in his life was to live in gratitude and live in exuberance, a joy that drives out fear. He was martyred as a Chinese missionary in a Japanese prison during World War II. 25 of the youth he mentored went on to do Christian ministry. One man tells us that when he had no shoes Liddell gave him the track shoes he used to win the Gold Medal in Paris, France in the Olympics of 1924.
In 50 years of coaching and counseling, we have discovered a holy order of exuberance that you can learn even to climb out of early experiences of abuse, depression, and fear that might have been standard norms growing up.
Our gold standard is F.U.N "failing until now!"
We start with the lowest level of exuberance we call the Philosopher.
This coaching/counseling service is for the man or woman who no longer believes they can win, have thrown in the towel, and does not care any longer. Their strategy of life is that of Philosopher. He lives in the first dimension of existence, a point.
The next strategy is that of the Spoil sport who once lost in the Game and has unwittingly made that loss a signature moment for their life, and now calls the Game "just a game" that does not need one's complete involvement of heart, brain, and belly. He lives in the second dimension of existence, a flat plane. Flat. Like a flat tire.
The third level of exuberance is the Player who plays the Game only for fun and when it requires work or pain leaves the Game. He lives in the third dimension of existence, volume, space, a tired filled up.
The fourth level of exuberance is the Winner who plays the Game only to win. Theologically the Winner is the one who works to earn love and gets no pleasure if he gets no love or prizes. Inevitably the Winner discovers soon the pain of losing beats the joy of winning, so the person drops his level of exuberance or chooses easier competition, and the Game gets boring, and he invents his own game (porn, lust, cheating). This is the fourth dimension of existence, time.
The fifth level of exuberance reverses the object in play. The Latin word "ludere" is the root for "illusion" and the word for man as Homo Ludens, Man the Player, more than Homo Sapiens "Man the Knower." The magic in the Game is in the things "in play" what starts out as "pretend" which suspends the rules of the fallen world of cause and effect which we play the Game and rehearse through play what we finally discover as what is real. This is the fifth dimension of existence, eternity and has some parallels to the Player who is not conscious of time either.
In pretend we arrive at what we tend as a done deal looking back in gratitude.
Freud was a spoil sport when it came to God and religion and called it an "illusion" as sickness. But he avoided the generosity of the Game, of God, with the "things in play" so while Hebrews said, "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" (Hebrews 11:1) Freud refused to play along and called it "wishful thinking".
What a sad mind. What is the opposite of "wishful thinking"? "Fearful thinking? Indifference? Freud was a coward. "But the cowardly...their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death." (Revelation 21:7,8)
As Homo Sapiens we hide what we know about ourselves, but in the Game, as Homo Ludens, we play and engage first in battle, then in love, then indifference, and it is indifference to the Game where we get excommunicated because we stop caring.
There is transformation in the Game where the Game takes the initiative down to us and we discover our greatest shame becomes our greatest glory, the stone the builders have rejected, has become the capstone, the key to our whole personality.
Love and exuberance have driven out fear.
This player is called the Overcomer because he does not overcome but is Overcome by the Game's exuberance. The Overcomer is not inspiring but inspired. In Hebrew Jacob the Creep becomes Israel the Overcomer, named by the Game, or God, because he has fought with God, not against God, and overcome. In Greek his name is NIcodemus, which comes from the Greek god of victory (Nike) and "demos" meaning the people, people who are more than conquerors, or simply the children of the Game.
With these players God as the Game now has a home on earth like He originally had with the first man and woman he put in Eden which is Hebrew for delight. The victory of the competition between love and death has been won. God comes to dwell in the overcomers for good:
"Now the dwelling of God is with overcomers, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things (like work and marriage as punishment) has passed away." (Revelation 21:3)
Recess has become the main curriculum in our school of life. People pay us generously to have fun, but it is not "just fun" but courage:
"When (the Deep State) saw the courage of Peter and John they realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished, and they took note that these men had been with Jesus." (Acts 4:13)
"After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly." (Acts 4:31
Less repenting, more rejoicing.
Less "Please God, please?" and more "Thanks God, thanks."