Ava's Game

Ava invented a game tonight at bed time.

It was the usual routine... brush teeth, get pajamas on, get the kids in bed and pray Psalms over them (tonight was Ps. 119:9-11). The urgency of the Psalm comes from conversations I had today with male college students about purity that would make you weep.

I decided (in a rare moment of slowing down to enjoy them at bed time) that I would try to get to know what has been on Cameron's mind. I asked him if he knew what worry was ["It's when you think about things like if your friends will be mean to you"], and if he had worried about anything lately. He said he worried about his birthday- would it be fun? Then he asked why we say at the end of praying "Name. Amen." Of course, he meant "in your (or Jesus') name, Amen."

Ava hates being left out when she knows there's something relational happening, so she came in to join our conversation. She said, "Daddy, I've got a game we can play- you tell us a story and we'll tell you if the person was following Jesus or Satan." She had been thinking about something I said earlier and just made this game up as she was laying in bed.

It's a game of moral dilemmas. So I started with easy ones- "Johnnie is on the playground getting beat up by Freddy."

"Freddy is following Satan."

Then my scenarios get progressively more ambiguous...

"Then Mike comes over and punches Freddy to defend Johnnie."

It was a great discussion. Thanks, Ava, for our new game.

P.S. Ava said it would be "a great game to play with people who don't know Jesus, because they will learn what it means to follow him."