Playground games . . .

What do you remember most about being a kid on the playground? Was it the swings or the monkey bars? Maybe you enjoyed the merry-go round or the teeter-totter. Was it playing tether-ball, four square or other ballgames?

I enjoyed all these things, but there was another ‘game’ we played that I remember more. It was a ‘game’ I didn’t enjoy because I was always one of the ‘losers.’ It was like king of the mountain and I was always pushed toward the bottom. It was the ‘pecking order game.’ Yet even as a ‘loser’ I still played the game and put down others who were younger or ‘inferior’ to me and my group.

Paul had to deal with the Judaizers who were boasting about how great they were to the church at Philipi. Paul even joined in their game and started bragging about how great he was too, but then he let the Philippians—and us too that it is the wrong game to play.

The very credentials these people are waving around as something special, I'm tearing up and throwing out with the trash—along with everything else I used to take credit for. And why? Because of Christ. Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant—dog dung. I've dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ.
Philippians 3:7-8 (MsgB)

We need to be careful not to think too highly of ourselves and boast about who we are and what we have done. We need to be careful that our past achievements and titles don’t get in the way of knowing Christ. God resists the proud; apart from Jesus I am nothing.

Are you still playing the ‘pecking order game’? I was in my heart. I came into the ministry eighteen years ago with the expectation that people would call me pastor. However, many people don’t. I never told anybody about it, but it used to really bother me. Over the years I have learned to lay down my aspirations to be known as ‘someone special’. I’m just Greg, and that’s all I need to be. I don’t want my lofty desires to be stand in my way of knowing Jesus better. No more playground games.