Why We Play: The Person Across the Game Table Matters

A few weeks ago, I had two friends over.

We talked about sports, probably my second-biggest hobby. They also asked me about work and my family. One guy even asked me how my “read the Bible in a year” challenge was going and offered me encouragement to stick with it when I felt overwhelmed with how far behind I had gotten.

None of this was surface-level pleasantries. These guys had a genuine interest in both how I was doing and in sharing their lives with me in return.

Then someone screamed at them to shut up. 

Wow. What a jerk.

Too bad that jerk was me. 

Luckily, they didn’t hear me yell since that primal screech took place safely inside my own mind.

We chatted about all of the above topics for only 20 or 30 minutes, but it felt like so much longer. For most of it, my chest felt tight, while I spent an amount of willpower Green Lantern Hal Jordan (I like comic books too) would envy, not telling these guys to shut up.

The reason for my great distress? These guys had come over to play board games, and all of this friendly conversation was “getting in the way” of picking the first game. More like the only game, I thought grimly at the time. In hindsight, jerk might not be strong enough to describe the temper tantrum I so desperately wanted to throw that night.

Not only were my concerns ridiculous, they were also unfounded. We actually finished three games that night including one of my all-time favorites in Chinatown (the others were Equinox and Arboretum for those curious). I didn’t win a single game, and only placed second once, but it was one of the best evenings I’ve had sitting around a table in months.

It was exactly the kind of night I prayed for when I moved 735 miles away from everything I knew two years previously. Not because we played three incredible games, but because there was a time not too long ago when I feared I wouldn’t make those kinds of relationships in my new town.

There are a dozen or so reasons board gaming supplanted watching sports as my top hobby. The main reason I enjoy playing games so much is because it puts people, sometimes mere acquaintances, around a table and gives them an excuse to interact face-to-face without all the awkward pauses that are so common between strangers and sometimes even relatively new friends.

The relationships I made with those two guys, and so many others in recent years, have always been what I’ve loved about gaming. Yet on that evening, I got so consumed with the objective for the night, “play board games,” that I lost sight of the purpose of why I play those games in the first place.

Written out, my priorities that night seem so backwards it’s laughable.

I sometimes wonder if Christians have a similar issue when sharing their faith with others. There’s no doubt that sharing our faith is important. Jesus tells us, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations… teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19–20a).

Speaking of commandments, Jesus dropped a doozy on the disciples shortly before his arrest. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another” (John 13:34). 

Throughout his ministry, Jesus took time to sit with people, often the exact type of person most “upstanding society members” would hurry past. 

You don’t have to claim Jesus as your savior to think I come off as a jerk for being upset that two guys who call me a friend wanted to ask after my family and dared to tell me about theirs. A few minutes of my time might very well be the lowest form of love I could have offered them that night. Especially, since it came so begrudgingly on my part. 

Who could blame non-Christians for not feeling loved and respected, if the people who tell them about Jesus don’t take the time to show them that love by first learning about their families, hobbies and other things that matter to them.

So whether you hope to tell someone about Jesus or play a game with them, take a breath and remember why you’re doing this in the first place. Hopefully, the person across the table really matters to you, because they certainly matter to Jesus.

And if that table happens to be big enough for a board game, maybe just agree on one ahead of time and set it up on the table beforehand to avoid any awkward internal meltdowns.