No Moves??

There were no moves. It was that simple. I had gone through the deck three or four dozen times at least. Nothing.

I was playing one of those hand-held solitaire games. Perfect for car rides, waiting rooms, and boring lectures. And impossible to beat. At least this one was. It would electronically deal you your cards, you would play your moves, and then the game would steal your cards and hide others in the deck. You would be anticipating your almost-win when all of the sudden you would realize you were down to the last three cards you needed, all of them would be uncovered on base and the deck would only have two left. What happened to the third card?? The one needed to win? We’re talking some seriously shady gaming practices...

But, regardless, I had never encountered anything like this. Not in all of my years as a proficient solitaire player. I had never encountered a game in which there wasn’t one single move. I had a few games that were scrapped early on...and a couple more games where my own bad first move left me with very few others but this, this was new. There was nothing. No cards to be stacked on each other from base. No deck cards to lie down in hopes of further advancement. Absolutely nothing. I shuffled through the deck again and then again and again. I was baffled. Not a single card. I put the game away and went to bed...only to take it out again every night for a week to contemplate the same phenomenon. The same seeming impossibility. I wouldn’t start a new game because I just couldn’t get it.

Finally, however, I was sick of staring at my dud cards. The fact I would turn the game on every night wouldn’t change the fact I could still not move a single card to a single location. And, with some pain, I pushed the “shuffle” button. It was time to deal a new game whether I could handle the trauma of the previous or not. The new cards came up on the screen. Black three on the white four. Ace of Spades into the home space. I went through and played and each move opened a new move and I found myself advancing quickly through the game. The same game which never before allowed me a win and, in fact, just now had left me without a move to claim. I went through the deck cards and uncovered the last of the stacks. One by one I moved them into their respective suits. Jacks...queens...kings...The screen blinked at me as it shouted my victory’s tale “WIN! WIN! WIN!”

My smile of success faded easily into that of perplexing confusion. I had just transitioned seamlessly from a game with no moves to that of an immediate win. On a game in which a successful outcome was one in 152? Yeah. Right.

And yet, I began to think – as I often do – about the parallels it was drawing with my life. How often I become stuck in situations where I am left to believe that I have absolutely no moves left, that there’s nothing I can do. And in fact, sometimes that is exactly the case. Still I stare in awkward disbelief. “How is it I can do nothing? Not one card? I can’t make one attempt?” I spend an ungodly amount of time weighing every option. “There has to be a way...” But, with a cringe of surrender, I eventually come to a place where I cash in my chips. Where I give in and say “I guess we try again...” Sometimes it is a matter of fact; sometimes it is a matter of the very air I believe myself to be breathing. There is something disheartening about realizing your every try was worthless and the next round might provide some moves but is still going to end in the same result. Why bother?

Except I was struck this time. I was left to wonder this time. About my plans. How unusual it was that the exact time I was willing to say “Yup, game, you win! I suck again...and again I can do nothing!” is the exact time I was given victory. A victory I desired, but hadn’t anticipated. A success I worked for continuously, but never earned...had just been given to me. So this time I was struck, by how many victories are waiting past my inability to surrender. How many open games of solitaire do I have in my life? Where I’m staring at the cards and pouring through the deck and recognizing that I’ve been out of points for the last 73 rounds and still I’m going “There has to be a way to win...” There is. But it’s going to take giving up the game you’re playing in favor of trying a new one...

The more time I spend trying to get by in life, the more time I spend realizing that I spend a lot of time wasted. The more I realize that my job wasn’t to get by, my job was to be faithful. And somehow, being faithful is all about surrender. Sometimes life really is about cashing in your chips and saying “Here we go again...To do the best we can with the cards we’ve been dealt...realizing I’m not the one in charge of winning the game.” Perhaps my perspective is a little skewed. Perhaps my theology is a little off base and my philosophy a bit to be desired. Or maybe I’m just getting to a point where I can’t do it all any more. Where to win I must first know what it means to lose and I must first be lost if I ever wish to be found...