I’ve been having fun with video games this week. It’s Fall Break, and although I have some work to catch up on, both house work and school work, I’ve allowed Raikana and I to play a lot. Not being a fanatic gamer, it’s taken me a while to work through one or two games. I confess, I prefer kid “smash and grab” games. “Jak & Daxter,” and now “Ratchet & Clank” are my favorites. When I recently got stuck in R&C I began a new game of “Van Helsing.” Now, I can notice some standard layouts in gaming that I didn’t notice when I was a novice. I will preface this next part with “Usually.” I realize there may be deviations, and as you can see, my game knowledge is very limited. But, in the cases I have seen, the “money” and "health" icons lead you to the place the game wants you to go next. If the game gives you a new weapon, you will have an “easy” enemy on which to use it just around the corner. You have to fight some low level baddies to gain proficiency and “health” so you can get ready to fight the “boss.” If you want to stay safe and comfortable and just gain “money” you can stay in the sections you have been in before, re-fighting low level baddies. But you aren’t fulfilling the purpose of the character in the game. Stick with me now. Our Christian life is like this.
When you start in your Christian life, God gives you all these wonderful feelings of freedom, love, spiritual power and closeness with Him. These are like the “money” or “health” icons in the beginning of a game, getting you to move in deeper to the next area.
When you begin to pray, and see results, you want to pray more and do more. You want to share the gospel and are not ashamed. Then, you run across temptation, or someone who doesn’t respond well, or outright abuse, or even a delayed answer to your prayers. Man, this “game” just got harder. What do you do? You can go back to where it’s safe: sitting in church, biding your peace at work, buying your groceries in silence. Or you can get tough, press on, and move forward. In game terms, you can fight back, learn new tricks, upgrade your weapons through use. God gives you both the weapons and the training for the next spiritual battle. It’s up to us to use them.
When I first started “Van Helsing” I got stuck right away. I couldn’t even get into the town I was supposed to go to. I didn’t know you have to push the “open doors/pick up items” button. Sometimes, we get stuck in our Christian life because we don’t know that we can “seek, ask, and knock.” At some points in a game, you need to “knock” or “open.” But some doors require double knocks, or even a shotgun blast to get through. In my life, I’ve run up against closed doors. I knew about the “seek, ask, and knock.” But I had to learn the Greek meaning of the words: keep on seeking, keep on asking, keep on knocking.
Recently I’ve been reading a lot of fiction, playing a lot of games, and busying myself in housework and schoolwork. These are good things. But, they were “areas” of the “game” I had visited before. I have been avoiding the next step. Unfortunately, as many have lamented, there is no “Pause” button on real life. You kids do not wait around for you to get on with training and being their good example. Opportunities to pray or share the gospel are there only a short time. If you miss them, they are soon gone. In a game, you can often back track to pick up those missed items. Here in Real Life, kids grow up, people move on, and moments slip away.
Our pastor said, in his review of his previous message that we are “here” now. Doing what we did to get “here” from “last there” will only keep us “here.” That won’t get us to the next “there.” He said, “they are good things that you’re doing. They may have been vitally important at the time. But the time will come when you have to put those good things aside, and go where God leads you next.”
So, my questions to ponder in my heart are, what good things was I doing to get to where I am now? What does God want me to keep doing? And what do I need to let go, in order to pick up the next thing? (Another gaming reference: “I can’t carry that. I’m carrying too much already.” You might have heard that from the games I call “slash-grab and go shopping” games.)