Rules

I was watching a soccer game the other day and a thought came to me, "if nobody likes the referee, why do we even have them?" Whenever a referee blows their whistle to make a call, based on rules that both teams have agreed to play by, the team that is negatively affected argues with the referee in anger. The other team applauds the call and respects the authority of the referee. As soon as the the next whistle blows and the teams are oppositely affected, they treat the referee completely differently. In other words, both teams only want the rules to be applied when it favours their team and argue viciously when they do not. Again, even though both teams have agreed to play in accordance with the same set of rules.

So another thought entered my mind, "what if they just got rid of the referees and the two teams governed themselves through an honour system where they each respected the other?" The answer to that is quite simple of course, there would be chaos. The game would change from soccer to a shouting match of accusations against one another. So the referee is needed to exercise authority on the rules and allow the game to flow within those set rules that are agreed upon by both teams. And yet, when the referee does their job, they are attacked for their use of that authority. Now mind you, the referees don't always make the best calls and they definitely miss others. But what if there was a perfect referee that was not human and could make every call perfectly in accordance with the rules? Perhaps an android referee of some sorts. Would that be something that the teams would want? There would be no need to argue or disagree with the referee because the call would always be the right one. For some reason, I don't want that and I feel like athletes would be hesitant with that idea too. The reason is because they want to bend the rules and get away with certain things. Human beings don't like to get called out on everything we do wrong, even when we know we are doing something wrong.

So there is this interesting paradox that exists in sports where athletes both love and hate the idea of a referee that does their job correctly. They want justice exercised in full force against opponents, but not against themselves. How interesting. In an interesting way God is that referee in our life. He lays the rules down for us, exercises perfect judgment and he makes sure that transgressors of those rules are punished. It's just that, we don't want to be punished. Because we know we are guilty. And we certainly don't want to live in a world where there are no rules or authorities that don't help govern society. Or else we know that chaos will occur. Everyone will play by their own rules and act for their benefit. Sometimes it's hard to see the freedom in God because we feel like he limits our natural desires and tendencies. But maybe, he is in fact protecting us from chaos.