Many years ago when I was leading a youth group, I saw a non-competitive game being advertised, it wasn’t cheap, but I thought that it had a good moral message, so I invested my heard earned cash and bought one, I read the rules and one Sunday evening we played the game. I confess, that it was one of the biggest disasters I can remember, the kids were bored out of their brains, I was bored and the whole thing made for a very strange evening, I can’t remember much about the game all these years later, only that it was an hour or so of my life that I will never get back, the whole aim was for everybody to end up in the same place as they started, there was no winners or losers, apart from the fact that we all felt like losers. The game sat on a shelf at home for a while, until, a few years later I was daft enough to give it another go, and it was equally disappointing. I lent the game to somebody, I can’t remember who, and they never returned it. If you are reading this thought for the day and are in possession of my game, please keep it, and I hope you have found it more enjoyable than I did.
The American sports writer Grantland Rice (1880-1954) wrote the words “For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name, he writes – not that you won or lost – but how you played the game” in Alumnus Football 1941. That is often seen as being an honourable approach, but I guess that my experience taught me that playing any game, whatever it is, if you set out without the desire to win, you might as well not have wasted the effort. Whatever game we play, we must play to win, I can’t see any alternative, the main issue is how we play the game, and I believe that this is the point Grantland Rice is making. I get frustrated when watching quiz show on television and see people who have to win at any cost, cheating if necessary, simply to win.
The question is in my opinion, “is it wrong for us to try to be the best that we can be?” and my answer would be “no” As I read the Gospel stories, Jesus is encouraging people to do the best they can and be the best they be. John Wesley, the instigator of Methodism two hundred and fifty years ago talked about Christian perfection, and my understanding of what he is saying is that Christians should strive to be the best we can be for the sake of others and for the sake of God.