He’s the sort of man that makes silly videos with his adult daughter sitting in his shopping cart at the local big box store. The sort of man who is equally at home playing drums with the worship team Sunday morning as he is playing in a garage with his friends on Saturday night. He exudes joy wherever he goes. He is the sort of man you want at your gaming table, but I’ve never gotten him there. For all intents and purposes, Frank’s the sort of guy I dream of playing with, so one day after church I asked him why he never made it to any of our events. After a little verbal squirming, he told me the reason. “I’m too old to get into that sort of stuff.”
It is a common understanding that games, whatever the form, are the purview of the young. This assumption, however, is the opposite of my own experience. In fact, my own passion for the hobby speaks against it. While I had always enjoyed playing games, I was not exposed to the depths of tabletop gaming until I was in Seminary. I was ushered into the hobby by a man thirty years my senior. Each summer he brought games like Ivanhoe
To tell someone not to make assumptions is paramount to telling them to stop breathing air. As gamers, especially those who enjoy strategy games, we make them all the time.
“I think he’ll place his worker over there this turn.”
“I’m positive she’s sitting on a victory point.”
“He has to be the traitor.”
We can study the board, observe a person’s play style, or the player himself. Armed with what we’ve seen, we can make informed guesses – but they’re still guesses. How we choose to act on them could seal victory or lead us down the path to inevitable defeat. But if we refuse to move until we are certain of victory, everything stops. There are things that we cannot know until we make our move – whatever it is.
The problem is not in the making of assumptions. It is when we fashion those assumptions into something more. 
Brick by brick we build up walls that shut off roads we might have traveled down. Brick by brick we raise up fortresses to protect us from the terror of a world that is equal parts broken and beautiful. But in the effort to protect ourselves from harm, we end up shutting ourselves out of great experiences. Words like I’m too old or I’m too young or I’m not an athlete or That’s just for nerds don’t form places of safety from the outside world. They become the prison we build around ourselves that hold us back from the rest of the world. Possibly, even from the very things and people God has called us into.
In the 37th Psalm, the psalmist says that those who delight in the Lord will be given the desires of their heart. I’m still not always sure what it means to truly delight in the Lord, to draw so close to Him that what I want becomes what He wants. I know that it comes when you make the decision to keep moving. Sometimes the clouds will part. Sometimes you’ll slam into a brick wall. And sometimes God will give you the sledgehammer. You’ll never know until you chose to make your play.