how to win in the game of life with god

5/5/2019

Life is like a game of chess. Without God, you can take a pawn and change it into any color, yet it is still the same pawn, making the same moves. But… if you take that same pawn and turn it into a Queen, imagine how the game changes. That is life with God.

How you live now, in this moment, will either help bring light to the world or it will not. It’s up to you to make each moment count.

You can live your life as a pawn in this world, and be moved one square at a time, following others around, only taking steps when others say it’s ok, or when you feel it’s acceptable or when you think no one will notice, or when you think it will bring you closer to the next “acceptable place” in society - and in the process take the chance of losing yourself because you can only move one step at a time -

Each day we move a step and we think, “is this what God wants us to do”? And we make our lives so much more difficult moving one step at a time.

OR.....You can live your life as the royalty you are. You can have faith in God that he will help you become that Queen piece in the game who believes in their self worth - because you know, and have the faith that you are a part of God, that you are a child of God, and have that light inside of you - that you can make each move with strength because you have God in your life.

What God does is, through his will and guidance, he allows us to move multiple steps to get to where we need to be. He fills the board game with just the right amount of pieces which are people or events that help propel us to where he wants us to be - all to protect the King.

Romans 8:17 - Now if we are children, then we are heirs - heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

Why the Queen?
Chess is logical and strategic. As you’re moving these pieces around, each piece has its’ own function, but the Queen can move anywhere and do anything on the board. (within the games’ guidelines, which we talk about below)

So if we look at ourselves as that Queen piece that God is guiding anywhere he needs to guide us to, then we will have the ability, through God’s will, to move anywhere we need to fulfill the purpose God has for us.

The process of the Queen moving anywhere is to protect the King at all times - Jesus Christ. In other words, bring God’s message to those who don’t believe, or even to those who do believe.

Where Do You Begin?
(Or Re-Start Wherever You Are In Your Life? - it’s never too late)
You may be thinking that you want to believe this, but you don’t understand how to even begin to think this way, or apply this to your life. We’re about to explain that to you…. If you are religious or not, in your 20’s or your 80’s, this should help you take the first step that you know your heart wants to try - because you’ve read this far, and because you’re here. Thank you for making that choice.

Where To Start:
We will start by explaining our basic human needs and how we can tap into these proven scientific human needs to help jump start or revive your life towards a more fulfilling, peaceful life with God.

Then we will explain the analogy of a game, how it applies to our lives and most importantly, we will then show you how God can and will help you through.

Each section you are about to read will help inform the next section. We hope you walk away from this article with a clarity about how God is there for you - especially during the hurtful or hard times. If you are willing to follow God’s path for you, while it may be difficult, the destination is more rewarding than you can imagine.

RULES OF THE GAME

Whose Rules Are You Playing By? Rules shmules. Who cares about rules right!? Actually, every human being needs the rules of the game, even if you think you don’t, or even if you’re instinctual thought right now was “rules, I was born to break them” - well, that is just a conditioned belief to make you feel that if you break the rules, that means you are strong and independent - when in fact, did you know that your primal human need is to have rules? - because - clear rules, or goals, allow us to know whether or not we are making progress - and progress provides us with a reward. For example:

Why We Need Rules (Based On Evolution)

Evolution shows us that we are fundamentally in search of experiencing pleasure and/or avoiding pain with each activity we chose to do. For example, when you are hungry, you eat and your body rewards you with dopamine to encourage you to repeat the same behavior next time you are hungry.

With emotional needs, such as gaining acceptance from others, this is where we need a little more guidance, because, without any guidance, it would be up to our own perception of our own progress. An example would be actually knowing you have won a car, and “thinking” you have won a car. Both will trigger dopamine in your body to give you the same physical pleasurable reward, until you want to drive the car that you don’t have.

So you can see that rules are important to help us keep boundaries between knowing what is right and wrong. With all of the options and distractions we are offered, it can be very difficult to know what the right thing is to do that will give us the most reward in the end. We want to do the right thing and become the Hero in the end of every game. This is why it is most important to have a relationship with God - because God’s rules or guidelines for you help elevate you above the noise so that you can be guided righteously towards your unique purpose.

There Are 3 Sets Of Rules You Can Play By In This Life:

1 - YOUR OWN - (living a life self absorbed)
2 - THIS WORLDs - (living a life on what others want of you)
3 - GODs - (living the life God designed for you to live)

YOUR OWN RULES:
Background: This is when you live your life with a focus on your own self gain. Each relationship or interaction you have focuses on what you can get from it. For example:

Will this person help me look good (vs. do they encourage and support my purpose)
Will this person help me make more money? (vs. do they believe in me and my mission)
Will this person drag down my status? (vs.how can I lift them up during their journey)

In that process, sometimes you stab other people in the back, you step on people’s toes, and you may even lie to gain the things you want.

This false sense of fulfillment or self gratification, creates a cynical part of you that thinks that everyone else will try to do the same thing to you. “If I’m willing to do this to get to where I am, than that means other people are going to be willing to do it to me.” - and how could you have true peace in your life when you’re always feeling like you need to look over your shoulder to see who the next person is going to be that might stab you in the back?

In the end, when you gain those things, you don’t feel the emotional reward in your heart, because of the way you did it. Physically, the body does not produce the neurochemical dopamine that gives you a feeling of fulfillment which naturally occurs when you establish genuine, positive relationships.

Instead, you are hooked on the adrenaline - the rush of getting away with something for own self gain. You don’t believe that this feeling of fulfillment from good deeds even exists, or that you deserve it, so you continue down the path of getting that quick adrenaline rush, even if for a small moment in time, it feels ‘good enough’ to you.

Don’t be blinded...there is a way to break that cycle. You know you’ve seen good people gaining many blessings for doing the right thing - you choose not to acknowledge there is another way.

By following God’s way and making moves through God’s will for you, he will put people in your life that will truly help you, and not try to gain from you or stab you in the back. God will give you the gift of discernment to tell the difference between who is there to genuinely help you vs. those that want to gain from you.

Matthew 7:7-8: Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you; For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth and to him that knocketh it shall be opened

THIS WORLD’S RULES:
Background: In this world, we have our choices - usually worldly thoughts are our options under these rules - that can only help us one step at a time.

These worldly desires usually are:

fame
wealthy/riches
promotion - (for wealth/riches vs.for making a positive impact/difference)
marriage + family - (for admiration/acceptance vs. for true love and peace)
looks - (going out to get plastic surgery to look like someone else, because you make that person or definition of beauty your idol vs. loving and accepting yourself)

When you start to follow the expectations of others, another person’s path and try to do the same thing they are doing, you’re not becoming who you are supposed to be. So you lose yourself in the process....

When....God has a purpose for you - not to be someone else, but to be yourself, and he has a path for you, individually.

Romans 12:2: Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Look at the statistics of wealthy people that are unhappy. "research shows that giving to others leads to greater happiness than spending on oneself. The one factor that makes some of them happier than their equally wealthy peers comes as no surprise -- making the money themselves instead of inheriting or marrying into it." - Inc.com Harvard Study

They gain every ‘thing’ but the one thing they don’t have is God. That’s when you realize you’re just a pawn, giving or taking favors from people that have hidden agendas, all to get what you think you need. And always wondering when you will hear “checkmate” meaning, you will feel the need to stay on your toes if you will get fired, or have enough money to take care of what you currently have, or if your friends or family truly care about you.

When you follow the path God has for you, you’ll find other like minded people who care from the heart, and you don’t worry about checkmate anymore, in fact you enjoy being a part of the board of players because you are royalty in God’s eyes, and you know each move you make will be in good hands, in God’s hands.

Isaiah 41:10: Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand

GOD’s WAY:
Background: God’s way,or God’s word (in the bible) provides all of the guidelines you will need to receive the pleasure and fulfillment we are looking for.

Every move we make in our life can be based on things we want to do - or what God has in store for us. A lot of times we find that when we do things for our own self gain, most times it doesn’t turn out the way we expect it to, and sometimes it can lead us down a really bad path. But when we start to follow the moves that God has for us, we start to look and say ‘Wow, I can’t believe these things are happening”, and we see things falling into place that we would never expect to happen.

Psalm 119:105 - Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.

After all, you don’t play a game in the dark.

Here are some of the guidelines God’s will and love for you provides. When you have faith in God, and trust in him for your life’s purpose, he will provide all of these aspects to work in your favor:

11 Opportunities You Are Given By Choosing God’s Way:
(many more can be found in the bible as you read and learn the word of God)

1. Minimize the impact of the element of Chance With God providing you guidance, you can trust in his will to prevail. Proverbs 19:21: Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails. Proverbs 16:33 We may throw the dice, but the LORD determines how they fall.

2. Become Less Self Absorbed: When we concentrate fully on an activity there is no room for self-reflection. All of our attention is used to perform the activity. Afterwards, we can look at ourselves and notice we have grown from the experience - our mind has been enriched with new skills and new accomplishments

3. Develop The Right Skills: Helping you to develop skills that teach your opposition and outmaneuver them when needed.

4. Goals Are Set At A High Level where we need to invest our skills to reach the goal - otherwise the goal will become meaningless. God has the most faith in us.

5. Receive Well Needed Feedback Along The Way by how others are impacted, improved or helped from your God given talents and purpose

6. All Progress Needs To Come From Our Free Will - If we feel forced to do an action to progress, then we become less involved in the task. Each decision we make for and with God, must be from our own free will to do so. The more challenging a task, the more we focus. If it were easy, and repetitive, then human nature has shown us, we would not want to continue with it. God is the master planner, and knows exactly what we need to help us grow, learn and contribute - righteously. And want to continue along on his path.

7. Using Enemies For Good - What’s amazing about playing the game in God’s rules is your opponents who are trying to beat you, even if they are not playing by God’ rules, God has the ability to use your enemies to help you win.

Romans 8:28: And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

8. It’s Not About Having Control, or having a feeling of control, but rather the confidence that you are developing such a great skill that the risk of failure is dissipating - through the faith of God and in the process brings more peace.

9. Our Perception Of Time Becomes Altered because while we concentrate fully on the purpose God has at hand for us, it doesn’t feel mundane - it makes our days feel like hours, and our hours feel like minutes.

10. Not Knowing All Of The Moves Or Even The Outcome - While Maintaining The Faith That It Will Be The Right One For You - we have a desire to understand and seek new knowledge, which is why we enjoy hearing new stories, reading the news and watching movies. We also want to know every move and see our future. BUT….

Thriller Movie Analogy: Think about a mystery or thriller movie. We watch the first scene by learning about the crime, walking through with the investigators and collecting all of the evidence along the way. We meet possible suspects and our brains begin to fill in the gaps with potential scenarios for who might have done it. Towards the end of the movie, we are presented with the final evidence that brings all of it together and our brain completes the pattern for the murder that we watched in the very beginning of the movie. Now, if the movie started off with a confession from the murderer, it would not interesting, there would be no surprises. And we would stop the movie right away.
Video Game Analogy: if we use cheat codes to get ahead in a game, we can get to the end faster, but then people will find out that we don't have the knowledge that we should have gained in the process because we cheated our way there instead of learning and developing skills that will help us in our life.

In this same way, we are receiving guidance from God, but he can not reveal the entire picture to us. God will give us just enough of what we need to bring us through each stage of our development towards our purpose, to keep us moving on the right track.

11. God’s Timing Is In Your Favor- In that same process, each person has a certain talent or purpose that they like or they think they want to do, and that doesn’t happen without educating and practicing and learning along the way. If we didn’t learn a new game, if we sat down with people who are already playing a game and didn’t know how the game worked, we would have to sit and understand how the basics worked in the game.

If we didn’t understand the basics it would be uncomfortable for us to start where the others were at, so we wouldn’t want to play, and possibly miss out on learning a new skill and new activity. Each of us is built differently - some of us enjoy handling multiple challenges at once, while others don’t want new challenges until we have conquered the first challenge. You’ve heard of the phrase “God doesn’t give us more than we can handle”. God knows exactly what we need, and how we need it. As long as you trust in him, he will show you this.

Psalm 37:23 - The LORD makes firm the steps of the one who delights in him.

Psalm: 16:11 - You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

With all of this - remember….

Winning is NOT the purpose. Living In God’s Will IS.

There is much more to winning that makes competition an important socializing experience. There is teamwork, cooperation, commitment to others, respect for your opponent, and, learning to play by God’s word and will for you. You may want to break those rules, to ensure your own victory, to “get ahead” during the course of the game.

Losing is only temporary and not all encompassing. You’ve heard the phrase; “It’s not whether you win or lose it’s how you play the game”.

You will learn more about your peers, your colleagues, your family and friends, playing skillfully with the rules, observing, listening and discerning your next move. If you are preoccupied with your own win, with coming up with schemes and ways you can skip a step, or break the rules, than you miss out on learning who is around you to help or to hurt you. Once you get to that next spot, you may be surprised to see who is waiting for you, to drag you down, or to question your arrival.

Let God help you. You have ambitions and desires purposefully planted in your heart by God. Why do you think every person in this world has a different hope, a different passion? Just like a fingerprint, God has planted in your heart what your purpose is and if you let God know that you will trust in him, he will help you make all the right(eous) moves throughout the game, to help others - while helping yourself.

Ask God: “God, I know my heart wants to understand you, and know you, but I don’t know where to begin. I ask you with this prayer, to please help me get closer to you. Help me to believe that I deserve your love and your guidance in this life. I want to believe that I am royalty in your eyes, and I want to be able to live the life you have created for me. Please give me the guidance to show me the way Lord. I am grateful for all of the blessings you have given me, and I thank you for your love and faith in me. Please help me to release my worry and anxiety unto you. Lift my burdens that I may have a clear mind to hear your guidance. Please show me how to be closer to you Lord. - Amen”

STOP - listen in silence - still your thoughts - and wait to hear him to answer you. Take at least 10 minutes to breathe in silence, and wait to hear the guidance in your heart.

Philippians 4:6-4:7 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

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