In Character

Here's what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won't be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace. Matthew 6:6 (The Message)

A few years ago I joined a role playing game online. It started as a fun writing exercise and ended up being a great way to meet friends and kill all of my free time. I loved the challenge of writing dialog and plot in a fast environment and interacting with other people who were doing the same. I learned how to write fight scenes, how to make my plots virtually hole-free and best of all, how to flesh out my characters.

At the peak, I think I played three different characters but my main one was a teenage boy who was smart, opinionated and passionate. He hated violence, loved new experiences and earnestly thought he could change the world. He had a seed named Hank that he planted in a pot and encouraged to grow over the space of several months. He bowled with socks. He had a best friend who was terrifying and a girlfriend who could squash him like a bug. As you can tell, this character was pretty real to me. As the time I spent in-character wore on, it was easy for me to look at a situation or conversation in game and know exactly how my character would react, what he would say and how he’d respond. It had become natural.

There are times when I struggle to be that natural with God, to put aside all the roles that I play and just be me. I get tripped up with being ‘perfect Christian’ who knows the right words to say and says them eloquently. Just as easily I’m waylaid by ‘baby Christian’ who uses any excuse to stay in a shallow relationship with God. Those are just the tip of the iceberg, there are roles for ‘busy’ and ‘lazy’ and ‘shameful’; each one just a different way that I try to keep the focus on myself instead of God. I don’t know why exactly, maybe I’m afraid if God is focused on the real me that He’ll point out all the ways I’m failing. Maybe I’m afraid that He’ll point out something that I’ve missed, something big that needs to change. Maybe I’m just not sure how to be stop being a character and just be me. I think it’s time I learned.