Chutes and Ladders

I will dominate you in Mario Kart.  Seriously, I’m awesome and amazing.  I don’t even need blue shells.  I am THAT agile and fast.  I used to love when my college roommates’ boyfriends would come over.  They would play Mario Kart with me.  I grew up with brothers.  I dominate them, too… mostly.  Ok, my middle brother rocks… but only because he rides a unicycle in real life, and I feel like that gives him a visual/spatial advantage when it comes to maneuvering weird vehicles… whatever. 

During the time of my life where I was at my Mario-racing peak, I came across another game that I equally dominate.  In fact, you probably dominate it, too.  I would actually argue that it is the most widely played game in America, dominated by (almost) everyone.  Now, I know what you are thinking.  No, it is not Phase 10.  Btw, I dominate that as well… my middle brother can’t touch me.  Gets stuck on 7, two sets of four, every time… every time… bwahaha.  

And the most widely played game in America is… the Comparison Game of Life.  I like to think of it as a form of Chutes and Ladders. 

You’ve all played it.  In fact, you might be playing it right now, with me.  Let me explain the rules.  It goes a little something like this… Imagine you have a ladder.  All of us are born at the bottom of this ladder.  We are equals.  We are all the same – human beings, knit together by God and birthed out of a womb.  Gross, yet miraculous, I know.  Now, here’s the deal.  Very quickly, as we grow up, an interesting thing begins to happen.  We begin to place ourselves (and others) on different rungs of this imaginary ladder.  The Comparison Game of Life!  Who is the best, and who is lacking.  Who is great, who is good, and who is… eh. 

Any alien from another planet could catch onto this game by merely turning on that big, flat screen in your living room called a television.  Dancing with the Stars, Real Housewives of Some Random County, Cribs, Honey Boo Boo, What Not To Wear, Jeopardy, and yes, even The Bachelor… not hatin’ on The Bachelor… just sayin’…  What do all of these shows have in common?  There is a winner and there are losers OR there is a ‘right’ way to live and a ‘lesser’ way.   You either have the “X Factor” or you don’t. 

Like I said, this idea starts young.  For instance, you’re in kindergarten and write the alphabet.  You write the alphabet prettier, or manly-er, than everyone else writes the alphabet; therefore, your teacher puts YOUR alphabet on the board for all to see.  In your 6-year-old mind, you are now on THIS rung of the ladder [yeah, I'm gonna need you to picture it], whereas everyone else is down below.  Or, you’re a fifth grader, in gym class, preparing to play some basketball.  The captains pick their teams, and you and another girl are last to be picked.  Suddenly you hear the captain call HER name, sending you by default to the other team.  In your mind, you are now on THIS rung of the ladder, whereas everyone else is up there.

And this game continues… in every area of life.  How tall or short are you?  How skinny or not skinny are you?  How good at sports are you?  How good at math are you?  What kind of clothes do you wear?  What kind of phone do you have?  Do you have a phone?  Do you have a facebook?  How clear is your skin?  How big is your house? …  And your goal, everyday, is to figure out where you are on that ladder.  How do you measure up?  How much better are you than some people and how much worse are you than others? 

And don’t be deceived.  This game never ends.  The rungs merely change, or don’t.  As adults the rungs are often more about salaries, job positions, how cute your kids are, how smart your teenagers are, and how much you have in your 401k.  By the way, if you don’t know what a 401k is, that probably means you don’t have one.  You and I will be working side-by-side well into our eighties, while our retired friends do things like garden and play Pinochle… that is pronounced ‘pee-knuckle’... not that it matters, because, again, you won’t be playing it.  So… all the while, everyday, all of these things outside of ourselves are telling us who we are… how important we are… how good we are… and whether or not we actually matter.

Long, long ago in a land far away, there was this big group of people called the Hebrews.  For a long while, these Hebrews were slaves in a country called Egypt.  You had this guy named Moses, a bush that wouldn’t burn, a song entitled “Pharaoh, Pharaoh, Oh baby, let my people go”, a sea that defied gravity… you with me here?  [To get all the details, you can read Exodus in that big, honkin’ book called the Bible.]  Long story short, all of these people are named Israel, and Israel has this habit of forgetting the Lord God and worshipping all these other little fake gods, gods that they make with their own hands like cows made out of gold, weird creatures made out of wood or hunks of metal, etc.  And they give all of their attention and focus to these things instead of the Lord God.  The Lord allows them to do what they want.  God doesn’t force them to do anything; however, as a consequence of not paying attention to God, these mean people called the Midianites start attacking and killing them.  After awhile, the Israelites come back to God and they’re like, “Oh God, we are so sorry.  We messed up.  We didn’t listen to you.  Please save us from these big, mean people.”

Insert Gideon.  When we first see this guy named Gideon, he is threshing wheat – meaning he is separating the wheat from the chaff.  Easiest process of threshing wheat is to do it… outside... because that’s where the wheat grows and the wind just blows the chaff away and all that farm stuff.  Blah blah blah.  When we first see Gideon, however, he is threshing wheat inside a wine press – a little room where they would smash grapes, perhaps with their feet.  (Doesn’t that sound fun AND yummy?!  I know, right!)   So… Gideon is hiding, from the Midianites, in a wine press.  Gideon is a scared-y cat.  Gideon is the opposite of ‘brave warrior’.  On the warrior ladder of life, Gideon is down here, hiding, in a wine press. 

The Lord God comes to Gideon and God says, “Gideon, you’re gonna deliver Israel from the Midianites.  You’re gonna fight a battle against them, and you’re gonna win.”  Really?  Um, God, I don’t know if you saw the ladder, but Gideon is on the bottom rung, you know, the one next to dirt.

We go on to read more about Gideon in Judges 6.  For one, it says that Gideon’s family is the least in Manasseh, where they live; AND, Gideon is the youngest in his whole house.  So, not only is he at the bottom of the warrior ladder, but his family is the most insignificant in the whole town, they live in a shack, and he’s the most inexperienced, immature person around.  In the Comparison Game of Life, Gideon is not doing well; though, he sounds like a great candidate for The Real World! Alas, apparently God doesn’t bother God’s self with ladders…

Now, we can all put our heads together and assume that who won?  Gideon!  Yes, thank you… why else would I include this random story?  I mean, it’s great to hear stories about overcoming the odds, right?  Who doesn’t root for the underdog?!  Who doesn't cry at Rudy?  Except… what happens when the underdog is the person you see in the mirror?  The guy, or gal, at the bottom of the totem pole?  What do you do if the underdog is YOU?

When I was little, around 6 maybe, I used to hide in different parts of my house – in one random closet mostly.  Now, this was not “Hide n Go Seek”, cuz no one else knew I was hiding.  This was my own little made-up game that I now entitle “Do I matter?”  It worked like this – I would hide, and then I would wait.  I would wait and see how long it took for someone to come looking for me.  At the root of this game, though I didn’t realize it when I was six, was the monumental question, “Am I easily forgotten?  Am I all alone in this world, or is there someone who loves me that will come looking for me?” 

The Comparison Game of Life, that ladder you’ve been picturing, makes us feel alone and inadequate.  It makes us feel scared, and it makes us hide – maybe not in some random closet or in a little room filled with wine, but it makes us hide parts of who we truly are, because what if you're not accepted?  What if you fail?  What if you stop worrying about what other people think of you, start being who you truly are, and no one comes looking for you?  No one picks you?  What then?

But then we read this story, it’s about this man and this woman and they have this ladder, too, but they mess up.  They screw up really bad.  In fact, they do the one thing they are not supposed to do.  They’re given a job, and they suck at it.  Yup, bottom rung… so what do they do?  They’re scared.  They’re not good enough.  So they hide, wanting it all to just go away, feeling totally inadequate... ashamed... and naked. 

But they’re not forgotten, cuz they’re not alone.  Someone comes looking for them.  God comes looking for them.  And for the rest of God’s Holy Word, the Lord says, “I will always come looking for you.  You can’t do anything wrong enough for me to stop looking for you.”  All through that holy book, God says, “You are good.”  You know, there’s really no ‘good enough’ about it, cuz you know what?  Being ‘good enough’ implies that being ‘good’ isn’t enough, and from the beginning of creation God says it is. 

So… may you not get caught up in the opinions of the world.  May you work to destroy the power this ladder has in your own life.  And may you believe God when God says, “You are good.”  Because you are. 

And long live Duck Dynasty.  Amen.