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God-playing "au Jabay."
An understanding of the term "God-playing" as used by Rev'd Earl Jabay in his book "The Kingdom of Self" may be helpful to all of us in our efforts to fulfil the hopes of Jesus as announced in the Urantia Papers by their authors.
"Your mission to the world is founded on the fact that I lived a God-revealing life among you; on the truth that you and all other men are the sons of God; and it shall consist in the life which you will live among men--the actual and living experience of loving men and serving them, even as I have loved and served you." (2043)
If we are to effectively express the life lived by Jesus in our own lives, we certainly need to be free of even the remnants of the God-playing syndrome, which, one way or another afflicts all of us.
Jabay introduces us to the fact that "God-playing," in its primitive form, usually commences on the very first day of our lives. The new born babe's hunger soon strikes, occasioning the best it can do for an ear-splitting howl for help. The response arrives in the form of some strange object that is pushed into its mouth, provoking it to dribble and suck on this unexpected source of hunger-pang-relieving sustenance.
Then when the hunger pangs are satisfied, the baby lies back to reflect upon this remarkable power it has quite accidentally discovered within itself--the power to make the world jump to satisfy its wishes.
Soon though there appears a decidedly uncomfortable feeling from its nether regions. As this discomfort increases, it decides to again try out the only weapon it knows it possesses--an ear-splitting howl. Persistence is soon rewarded--and the baby is on its way to becoming another unchallenged ruler of all of its known universe. Surely it must be a god!
And so commences the war for dominance over others that is scheduled to continue throughout the remainder of its life.
This struggle to be number one is, of course, an inherited characteristic in babies that is essential for their early survival. The problem is that we continue to wage the struggle long after justification for it has ceased.
Rev'd Jabay illustrates his point with some examples of God-playing from real life. Two such examples refer to himself. His first recollection of "what he wanted to be when he grew up" was that he conceived of himself as leader of a military band. The fact that he had absolutely no knowledge of music nor any desire to gain such knowledge made no difference. He wanted to be the leader. Let others do the work.
In his next remembered foray into "grown-upness," he conceived of himself as a minister of religion, a goal that he eventually attained. Later he realized that this was connected with his prior band-leading yearnings. A minister is also a leader.
It then dawned upon him that his choices for a vocation had been based entirely upon his own egotism rather than either his musical or pastoral abilities.
Some of the symptoms of more adult God-playing are listed by Jabay in "I am" statements--"I am power;" "I am right;" "I am above time;" "I am a messiah;" "I am the law;" "I am perfect."
An example of a dastardly syndrome existent in all of us is our assertive desire to be right, and the failing that we have great difficulty in ever admitting that we were wrong.
Two friends, Jabay says, got into an argument about the pronunciation of the word "prerogative." One of them had pronounced it as "perogative" and had been corrected by the other. This of course irritated the corrected one immensely and argument waxed fierce--until the correcting one rushed off to the adjacent shop to buy a cheap dictionary. On return, he waved it triumphantly while declaring his victory.
But his now ex-friend was fighting to preserve one of the deepest convictions we can have about ourselves--the "I am right" syndrome. He stormed off while rejecting the authority of cheap dictionaries and declaring he only accepted the word of his Websters' unabridged version--which was conveniently unavailable at the time.
God-playing has been the source of many of the major tragedies of history, brought about by men like Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, and many others. But if we could summate the actual damage to humanity due to the God-playing of ordinary individuals like you and me, that sum would far exceed the damage caused by the spectacular examples of recorded history.
The requirement that we live our lives as Jesus lived his is fraught with danger, particularly if we see ourselves in leadership roles rather than that of humbly serving "as we pass by." Prominent in the article that follows is an extraordinary statement made by Jesus at the time when he was first gathering together those who later became his apostles:
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