Some families love to play games and schedule regular “game nights” with their children as soon as they’re able to handle Candy Land. Kids love games: Uno, Checkers, Risk, Sorry, Shoots and Ladders.
One popular game that appeals to all ages is Memory. It includes 50 cardboard pieces, each with a picture on it. These are ordinary items any child would recognize: a cookie, a bird, a truck, a cloud, a flower.
Every card has a duplicate, i.e. 50 cards, 25 different pictures. The idea is to spread them out face down, then take turns peeking at 2 at a time. The goal is to find an identical match, so if the 2 pictures you choose aren’t identical, you turn them back over and surrender your turn to someone else.
The trick is to remember what you’ve seen where, and after a picture has been shown, to remember its position. If you succeed in turning over two matching cards, you get to keep the pieces. The player with the most cards at the end wins.
Memory is one of very few early childhood games based on skill. Being able to re-find a picture you’ve seen earlier by mentally remembering where it’s hiding is difficult. Interestingly, 6 and 7 year olds are better at this than adults. They have an uncanny sense of what-is-where-when.
This idea of finding a good match can also be found in faith matters. Children accept what God says at face value, buying into him and his promises 100%, while we adults feel a need to thoroughly understand him before we can join him. In other words, we need to “match up” logic and probabilities before we can buy into what he says.
When the Lord says, “All things work together for good,” we say, “Well, not in my case.”
When he says, “I’ll never leave you,” we say, “It seems like you have.”
When he says, “I love you with an unfailing love,” we say, “Then why do I feel so alone?”
Children seem to effortlessly match themselves and their needs with what God offers: “You say I’m your child? Great! Then I’ll call you Abba.” (They may not know that word, but they have Abba-Daddy responses to him.) In their naiveté they seem to sense he’s a perfect match for them.
The good news for us older folk is that God isn’t put off by our tendency to doubt what he says. Thankfully he never stops offering himself as a match to us, not that we’re duplicates or equals in any way. But far superior to matching 2 picture cards in a game of Memory is the match he puts forward: our needs, with his sufficiency. Pairing with him is always a win-win match, much better than anything we can win on game night.
“[God’s] Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory.” (Romans 8:16-17)
