A few years back, when Cuban leader Fidel Castro was feeling considerably feistier, he joined other prominent communist leaders in a sandlot baseball game. Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez was on the mound when Castro came to the plate. Chavez worked the count to 3-2 and then threw a perfect pitch right down the middle. “Strike!” said the umpire – who was undoubtedly a very brave fellow.

Castro calmly responded, “No, that was a ball,” and walked to first base. No one on the field, in the crowd, or in the press corps raised an objection. After all, it was Castro’s field and Castro’s country. The boss gets to make the rules.

It’s good to be dictator.

In October 1905 the President of the United States convened an urgent summit meeting at the White House. The subject was football. Theodore Roosevelt declared that unless college presidents and the national rules committee changed the way the game was played, he would be forced to ban it.

TR loved football. His son was a player at Harvard. But the game had become so brutal that more than 100 student players had died on the field. State legislatures were considering bills to make football illegal. Roosevelt’s pressure and prescience led to a startling new innovation – the forward pass.

At first there were strong restrictions to the passing game. The quarterback could not throw a pass to a receiver in the end zone, and an incomplete pass was like a turnover; the other team got to take possession. Traditionalists harrumphed that throwing the football would end up ruining the game. But Peyton Manning and generations of football fans are delighted that Roosevelt held his ground and changed the rules.

It’s good to be President.

Every day, millions of people decide that they are more than capable of re-writing God’s rulebook for the Good Life. Telling the truth? Reality-bending is sufficiently epidemic that the ninth commandment is arguably the most violated in our country. Promise-keeping? There is no statistical distinction in the rates of marital failure between those inside and outside the church. Cheating? Americans are astonishingly lax when it comes to personal fair play on their tax returns and classroom examinations. That being said, no one wants to go into surgery under the knife of a doctor who cheated on his boards. We’re not so worried about our own behavior, but definitely prefer everyone else to play it straight.

At the level of popular culture, rules-breaking is almost a virtue. We follow the exploits of TV doctors, lawyers, cops, and government agents who simply have to violate protocol in order to save lives and make the world a better place. Cars are sold with the promise that their owners will be empowered to “color outside the lines.” Crooners remind us that I Gotta Be Me, and, when push comes to shove, I Did it My Way.

It’s good to be king of my own life.

That is, unless I am accountable to another king. To the true King. In that case, changing the rules would not be an expression of my freedom and creativity. It would be an assertion of defiant autonomy. And if the true King has designed reality in such a way that obedience to him brings profound joy instead of stifling limitation, I am unwittingly subverting my own quest for happiness.

It’s good to be obedient to the One who has my best interests in mind. That won’t sell many cars, but it will assuredly prevent a lot of broken hearts and ruined lives.