God is a DM. Honestly that is the simplest way to explain it. All things considered, when I try to wrap my brain around how an all-powerful, all-knowing God lets us run around in our puny little lives with this thing called "free will" and yet still maintaining His "will" I end up with a cerebral sprain. So I will try to explain this new analysis of an extremely deep concept in the smallest words possible.
In tabletop roleplaying games -whether D&D, Star Wars, GURPS, Vampire or any of the other unknown number of titles- there are two main types of people. There are the players (I am one currently) and the Game Master (aka Dungeon Master/DM/GM). I have been both at various times in the very short period I have enjoyed this genre of gaming. The DM is the glue for the game, he knows the story (where it is going and where it has been), he knows the players, he knows the bad things, and most of all he has absolute control over what happens. The DM is responsible for making the players feel a part of the story, but will (in most cases) fit any actions that the players take into the story without having it change the intended outcome. After my time "behind the screen" I understand that drawing the players into a storyline that has been precreated for them is a matter of appealing to each player and, to one degree or another, using the carrot/stick method to get them into the story. The DM also knows the rules, and is able to bend/break them or create new ones when needed. In the end, the DM decides what is right and wrong, not the players, and as such also determines the outcome of those decisions.
In my mind, God is not so different (albeit on a much larger, grander, omnipotent deity scale). God is in charge of the story. He has been in charge since before a day 1 was even thought of. God knows the players (us) more intimately than we do. God knows the bad stuff (even the bad stuff we create all on our own). And, yes, God has absolute control over what happens. God pulls, pushes, drives us in our lives through this story He has created. God wrote the rules, so He obviously knows what they are all about. Additionally, He is able to adjust them as He deems fit (see "miracles" for physical rules and "animals in a sheet" for morality/spiritual rules).
Now, if I haven't completely lost you, or driven you to start screaming "Heresy!" at the top of your lungs while storming around murmuring how wrong I am, I would also propose that we are players. That may not sound crazy, so to get more outside the religion box: my opinion is that my relationship with God should be vaguely comparable to my relationship with my DM. My interactions with "Man upstairs" need to look more like my interactions with the "man behind the screen". As a player, I am dependent upon the DM to show me the outcome of my actions, good or bad. As a player, I need to maintain a consistent relationship in the game with my DM to allow my actions to work more fluently with the story he has created. I want to know where he wants us to be, what his motivations are, and recognize that while I may not understand why the story is going where it is, that he is, in the end, looking out for my best interest -keeping the game fun, inviting and positive.
I am dependent upon God to show me how to live, how to interact, how to walk along in His will. I need the consistent relationship with God to understand where I am in relationship to where He wants me to be. I need to know that His motivations for me are based out of love and that even when I don't understand where He is going with my life, that He does care more about me than anything else in the world.
God doesn't have the failings of a human DM. God doesn't have to roll dice to determine some outcomes. God is God. But to my poor little brain, He is the DM running this game we call life.
No comments:
Post a Comment