The Game of Life

Today I spent an hour playing “The Game of Life” with younger siblings Amelia and Gabriel. With five us total, this game often gets out of hand in the Kasper household. It provides and affords many opportunities not always welcome in real life.

First of all, my siblings are sarcastic and subsequently hilarious (this is always welcome in real life but under context of “game” it is much looser and there is less physical harm as a result).

Also...The Game of Life? Hello! We’re talking about the ability to shamelessly tease each other about who we’ve decided constitutes latest crushes or potential match ups. When the board says “Stop! Get Married!”, we put in another peg shaped person with enough taunting to make an asparagus blush red.

Let’s not forget the ability to pay off college loans in one turn.
Or that choosing a career is a matter of drawing out of deck.
Or how easy it is to buy stock.
Or the fact that there are fantastic ‘LIFE’ letters ready to award you for every meaningful stop in the game.
Or the fact that at some point you’ll probably get to trade salary cards with any player.

For a moment of Kasper amusement, every game proceeds as if it were real life (minus the tears and my multiple accident prone induced injuries - mostly). We forced Gabe to name his wife (Barbara Ann) and his children (like most men, he couldn’t make up his mind...it took three more turns for his twins to get names!). Amelia’s two boys, Percival and Kierkegaard, won a beautiful baby contest and their family went on a vacation to the Grand Canyon. I myself was forced to wed (with some delay...I lost a turn before the ‘wedding’) and my spouse was named Argyle, Argyle Sweater (after a cute boy in an argyle sweater serving samples who flirted with me at Meijer last weekend – much to Gabe’s enjoyment). The Sweater Family had a boy and twin adopted girls who managed to stay nameless for the extent of the game. Argyle was a bit of a frivolous spender...with a house on the lake, multiple sporting events, and traveling...but it was a full life. Not to mention, we made several contributions to Artistic endeavors (I assumed it was my daughters, of course). And did I mention I got my book published and later won the Nobel Peace Prize? My life...talk about a doozy!

I ‘retired’ after both my younger siblings (several turns actually) and was awarded the fewest retirement LIFE chips. Also, I spent most of my money in the game funding art programs for the twins, going to night school, and sponsoring Argyle’s odd ideas of amusement (The World Series, Argyle, really??). So when the game was done, I lost. When the chips were totaled and the insurance policies turned in, I was a solid million (gotta love the Parker Brothers!) below the win. As I looked at my nameless plastic family in our little green car, I sneered at my brother and declared “we did cooler things!” “Yeah, well you still lost!” grinned my winning brother.

I laugh because everything in my life is an analogy. And I laugh because I realized even in the world of board games, we are told that in the “Game of Life”, the one who ends with the most money...wins. And I think to myself “the one who dies with the most toys...still dies”.

The Bible talks about money...a lot. I typed some key words into biblegateway.com (one of my fave websites) into the default version (The NIV 2010...a strange change if you’re familiar to the traditional NIV, just as side note commentary). The word “money” came up 113 times. “Poor” 176” times and “rich” 154 times. The phrase “love of money” comes up 10 specific times...all alluding to the love of money being the downfall of man. In other words...the furthest thing from life.

There is a contemporary Christian song (Stephen Curtis Chapman, I believe) where the lyrics quote “teach us to count our days, teach us to make our days count...” I informed Gabe I won because I did cooler things than he did. My pile at the end was smaller because my time on the board was about more than landing from payday to payday.

A lesson? Probably.

But there is more to it. There has to be. My board game trips and sporting events and house on the lake was a pretty shabby description of what it looks like to make my days count. Winning at the game of life is about so much more. It is about someONE more. Jesus is the more to it. He has to be. “Just one life twill soon be past; only what’s done for Christ will last...”


“Whatever you say or do should be done in the name of the Lord Jesus, as you give thanks to God the Father because of him.”
Colossians 3:17

The greatest use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.
-- William James