Learning How to Play

"Come play trains with me, Daddy."
"Come on, let's wrestle on the bed!"
"You watch Peppa Pig with me?"

Without fail, when I come home from work each day, I am greeted by one of these requests from Judah. Of course, it comes with a irresistable hug and a big smile. It fills my heart to have the kind of relationship with him where he looks forward to me coming home and waits all day for me to play with him. Mommy doesn't quite wrestle or play trains like Daddy does...

About three months ago, however, neither Judah nor I knew how to play. I'd sit down with him and he'd just start bashing his trains together. Or he'd play with Thomas the Train for two minutes and then go and find his bag of dinosaurs and dump them out, which would last for two minutes before he went to find his giant Lego blocks. He simply didn't know how to "play." He didn't know how to pretend.

And so he and I began to work on that. We focused mainly on his collection of Thomas the Train engines: 

• "Uh-oh! Thomas fell into the water! Percy, can you escort him to the Steamworks?"
• "Oh no! Have you seen James' coal car? I think Diesel must have hidden his coal car somewhere in Judah's room. Thankfully he left some hints..."
• "Thomas, this is Sir Topham Hat speaking. The Queen of England will be a passenger on Annie and Clarabel today, and you must make sure she has a quiet and gentle ride around all of Sodor. Can you take her?"

It has been one of the joys of parenting to see Judah actually learn how to play. Jess and I will hear him back in his room pretending to be Sir Topham Hat, chiding the trains for causing "confusion and delay." His "bashing" has gone from 100% of his play time to about 10%. And he's actually engaging his imagination into his activities, such that he can even play by himself. Victory!

But as I said earlier, Judah was not the only one who didn't know how to play. I didn't. And in some ways, I still don't. You see, Judah's lack of play was due to childish ignorance. Mine is far darker in nature. There is often a resistance to playing within me. If it is not there at first, after 30 minutes or so of make-believe, it will be there: a nagging sense of "I've got to get up and go do something real, something that matters." I could give that feeling a harmless name like "restlessness." I could justify it and say that it is just an introvert's need for some "time alone" after a long day at work. But at its core it is a failure to believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That may seem like quite a jump. I'll explain. The Bible points out what we all at least subconsciously know - that before God and before the world we as humans are insufficient. We fall short of the purpose we were meant to fulfill. There are two typical responses to that.

1. We feel that insufficiency and set about life to establish ourselves through our accomplishments and relationships and possessions (etc). Paul describes this response in Romans 10:3 as "being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own [righteousness]." You could try to stifle the feeling, but that will always land you back in the same boat, "seeking to establish your own" righteousness. 
2. OR, as a different response we feel that insufficiency and rather than attempting to make up for it ourselves, we accept God's provision for what we lack: the gift of righteousness through his Son, Jesus, which was wrought in his life on earth and offered up at his crucifixion. That is why Paul says, in the very next verse, Romans 10:4, "For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes." Because if you have the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus, there is no longer any need to fulfill the law. Jesus has done that for you. 

The first response is one of unbelief. The second, one of true belief. When I sit down with Judah and play, that sense of "I've got to get up and go do something real" is clearly a result of failing to believe the gospel (response number 2). Instead, being temporarily ignorant of the gospel, I feel that I need to get up and do something that matters (response number 1).

Judah is not the only one who is learning how to play here. As I teach Judah how to play, Christ teaches me how to play. For what is "play" if not a symbol for selfless love? As I play with Judah, doing something that in no way advances my career or builds up my portfolio or really benefits me in any way at all, am I not being formed into the image of Christ, whose entire life was one of serving others with no present return on investment? Was not Christ's coming down into this world, as it were, just one big game of make-believe in which he "wasted" his time and energy and even his very life for our sake?

May God help us believe the gospel, so that we can forget about ourselves for a moment and love others like he loved us.

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