Playing it risky

This may blow your mind, but it’s impossible to “play it safe.” We can try to “keep it safe,” but the minute we start talking about play, it has to involve risk because the original word for “play” meant “to risk, chance, or expose oneself to hazard.” In fact, author Diane Ackerman dove even deeper into the original meaning in her book, Deep Play, when she wrote that “play’s original purpose was to make a pledge to someone or something by risking one’s life.”

Clearly, the meaning of the word “play” has evolved, and I’m glad that recess no longer has to include dying, but I think we’ve lost something if we’ve forgotten that playing does include risking.

This is a foreign concept to our participation trophy culture, but the point of playing isn’t just to have fun and not keep score; there is also an element of pushing ourselves to the limit in hopes of victory. Of course, this also means that we have to risk the agony of defeat, as well, and I would suggest that’s the biggest reason why the modern era has worked so hard to find a way to play without having to risk feeling the sting of loss.

But the point of playing isn’t to make losing hurt less (or worse, to shield people from feeling that hurt at all), but to help those playing grow more. There are lessons to be learned in defeat that cannot be learned any other way, and our attempts to keep people from feeling “less than” have led to a generation that has no idea that they were made for more than they could imagine.

The question, then, is how to shift a generation from “less than” to “more than?” The answers could be vast and varied, but at the root of it all is learning that it’s okay to play it risky. To go all in. To give ourselves fully to something even if it may not end the way we hope it will.

Acts 1:1 tells us that Jesus’ preferred method of discipleship was to “do and teach.” Mark 6:30 shows us that the disciples followed his method when they were sent out. It’s a risky strategy, and one that our risk-averse church culture has reversed. We’d rather be taught before we do, and while I’m not advocating for a lack of preparation, I am aware that our tendency is to feel like we never know enough to actually do.

Cut out the risky part, and you’re left with people content to play it safe.

Jesus told a parable in Matthew 25 about three servants who were each given something to do while their boss was away on an extended trip. This boss knew his servants — what they could handle and what they couldn’t — because he tasked them “in proportion to their abilities” (verse 15). Translation: he didn’t overwhelm them, but he did expect them to do something with what had been entrusted to them.

Two of them did, but one of them hid. He played it safe, and the response of his boss tells us everything we need to know about what Jesus wants from his apprentices.

Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest. (‭‭Matthew‬ ‭25‬:‭27‬)

That man played it safe, risked nothing, and lost everything because the boss took what he had hidden and gave it to the one who had played it risky.

Risk allows us to try, to experiment, to learn from losses and mistakes, and to get better. Risk allows us to trust in power greater than our own, follow a plan more nuanced than our own, and bear fruit longer lasting than our own.

Risk leads to reward, and when we trust God’s leading more than our comfort, playing it risky doesn’t guarantee our safety, but it does guarantee our security.

Why? Because the God who calls us to it will guide, provide, and protect us all the way through it.

So go ahead. Push all those chips to the center of the table and call satan’s bluff. The victory that awaits you is worth playing it risky.

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