Jesus invites us to become like little children – spontaneous, filled with wonder, super-trusting, open, eager to learn and to grow. Jesus, though, is not encouraging childishness. Children love to play. It’s their way to explore the world, to learn the rules of how things work and how to be with others.
When we “play games” with others: when we don’t deal with them openly, honestly, fairly, when we manipulate and use twisted emotions to get our own way, we are NOT being like little children. We are behaving like spoiled brats. This is not playful, but destructive, and self-destructive.
Sometimes we might find ourselves playing games with the divine. This is not very healthy for our relationship with God. One common game we could try is hide and seek. We pretend that God can’t find us, especially when we are doing something that we consider bad or sinful. (Remember the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden.) As if there is any place apart from God who is here, everywhere. Maybe we think that if we keep God out of our consciousness, God can’t see us. Like little children who cover their eyes and declare, “You can’t see me now!” As if we can keep God “in the dark.”
It can also be that we imagine God playing hide and seek with us. We can feel that God is an expert at this game – hidden and impossible to find. God certainly can be silent, which is disconcerting in our world of uninterrupted noise. But God is always there, even when we can’t sense God’s loving presence. When we believe this, God emerges from the shadows. This is not necessarily consoling, because it may seem to us that no one or nothing is “there.” God is playful, but God doesn’t play games