My family plays a card game called Nines. It is a fun and very simple game. There are a few tricks in the strategy, simply due to the point structure of the game. I will let you take a look at the game and see it for yourself. Click HERE to view the instructions…
Why, you ask yourself, would a guy like you blog about a simple card game that you play on long winter nights? Simply put, the game has taught me a valuable lesson. What lesson could a simple card game teach anyone? Let me share…
In the game of Nines, the object is to get 3 lines of 3 in a row; all vertical or horizontal. As I think of the idea of vertical or horizontal, I realize that it really sums up life. You have to get all things in line. We have to get things in line with people (horizontal) and we have to get things lined up with God (vertical). It seems in life that so many times we try to get just the things with God in line, often leaving things with people unattended. Then there are the times when we are so busy trying to figure things out WITH people, or FOR other people; that we leave God completely out of the equation.
The moral of the story is this: Often times we go after one and leave the other completely alone. Scripture has a different take on this though. Look what it says in Romans 5:6-11
6 When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. 7 Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. 8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. 9 And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. 10 For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. 11 So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God.
And then…2 Cor. 5:18-20
18 And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. 19 For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. 20 So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!”
Nines taught me that my “3 of a kind” is simple… God, Others, and Me!