My sister used to beg to play video games with me, so I’d hand her a second controller — unplugged. She’d mash every button, lean side to side like she was dodging something, cheer when “her” character won. Meanwhile I was running both characters through my own controller, the real one, doing the actual work while she believed she was doing it with me.
She wasn’t lying to herself. She just didn’t know yet what a working controller felt like. She was learning the rhythm of the game — when to get excited, when to hold still, how a win feels — before she had the skill to actually play it.
That’s milk before meat. Paul told the Corinthians he had to feed them milk, not solid food, because they weren’t ready for it yet (1 Corinthians 3:2). Peter says the same thing with more affection — crave the pure milk of the word like a newborn craves it (1 Peter 2:2). Milk isn’t a smaller gospel. It’s the same truth, handed to someone in a form they can actually hold.
But here’s the weight of it: I was still the one actually playing. Everything she was learning about the game, she was learning by watching my hands, not hers. If I’d played sloppy, or cheated, or quit when it got hard — that’s the game she’d have learned. Paul tells Timothy to keep a close watch on his own life and his teaching, because doing that saves both himself and the people watching him (1 Timothy 4:16).
Somebody right now is holding an unplugged controller, mashing buttons, learning the game by watching you actually play it. The question isn’t whether they’re paying attention. They are. The question is whether the game you’re playing is one worth learning.
Sit with this:Who’s watching your hands right now — and what are they learning from how you actually play?
