Yesterday morning, my son asked me to play Jeopardy with him on his Wii. In the realm of game shows, Jeopardy is my all-time favorite. I grew up in a family that loves to heckle Alex (or contestants) for talking too much, who consider it a crime to have clues left uncovered on the board and issue despicable blame those aforementioned when it happens, and who don’t deem it necessary to phrase our responses in the form of a question. We also had other Jeopardy quirks, like if someone said the answer first and the other knew it was right, the delayed responder would give a different answer in defeat, just to have given something. Unless you were my old man, who would unabashedly copy the right answer and then do a self-congratulating fist pump as if he originated it when it turned out to be correct. I frequently got accused of cheating because I’d read ahead in the clue and spit out an answer as fast as possible, and I would always defend myself by saying it is not cheating if everyone else has the same opportunity. We all always claimed to have thumped everyone else.
We. Love. Jeopardy.
So, of course, when Lukas asked me to play, even though I seemed to remember that that game disk was unfortunately scratched, I said, “Yes.” Even though when we first got it a few years ago, when Lukas wasn’t as fluent a reader as he is now because he was so little and he required me to both read all the clues and give him the answers, I still said, “Yes.” Because I love my son and I love Jeopardy, and even though Wii games aren’t usually my thing, sometimes I will play them with him just to connect because they are HIS thing.
The reason I am writing about this is that Lukas completely inspired me in that 20 minutes or so we played before the disk reached the error part from a scratch or whatever and we had to get ready to spend some picnic time with our family anyway.
Lukas immediately buzzed in on EVERY. SINGLE. QUESTION.
Without hesitation.
Whether he knew it for sure or not, he jumped right in there to give it a try. He didn’t doubt himself. He wasn’t afraid of being wrong. He clicked the buzzer and gave it a guess if he didn’t know the answer (and considering he is 9, there were many he didn’t actually know). Sometimes I’d tell him the answer if I knew it and I had time before he clicked. Sometimes he clicked before I said anything. Sometimes I told him the wrong answer. Sometimes I told him the right one, or he just guessed it, or he actually knew it, and that always thrilled him. But the big thing to me was that he was willing to try on every single one.
I think it speaks a lot of our Jeopardy genetics since we always tried every question when I grew up watching Alex, even in his mustached days, which was decades ago at this point, it seems. But to me, it spoke a lot more.
How many things in my life have I not attempted to do because of the fear of failure? Because of the fear of looking foolish or being wrong somehow. Because I didn’t know for sure if I would succeed or if I had it all together or if I would look alright or sound alright or BE alright?
There are a lot of things I haven’t tried. There are a lot of things I HAVE. But I tend to over-analyze everything and sort out the what ifs of all possibilities before I just jump right in, before I click the proverbial buzzer to shine a spotlight around my name and draw the attention to me.
So what would the Answer be if my life were like a cool game of Jeopardy? What would the question be? What would YOUR answer and question be?
I don’t advocate making rash or unwise choices, of course, but I guess I am speaking out that we should not hold ourselves back in fear. God has given us a sound mind, not a spirit of fear. Lukas wasn’t afraid to click in on every single one of those questions because he knew that whether he was right or wrong, it would at least be fun to try, and he knew I wouldn’t judge him for being wrong, that I love him and I would even help him, and that I would celebrate with him when he was right.
The Answer that is coming to my mind right now is this: “I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13)
And what is the question?
“What can you do… and what are you waiting for?”
Chrissy Herrell's Bloggapalooza 