I have never been a good gamer. I crashed all the time in Mario Kart, and never could understand most of the other games my sons played in their younger years. I threw my hip out with Wii bowling!
I get irritated very quickly.
I prefer things that don’t make me crash and burn and lose a level. I like to see progress and achievement. I’m just glad Pac-Man was all I had to deal with in my youth.
I don’t know about you, but lately, I’ve felt like I’ve been in one big video game. This is the scenario:
Two steps forward — then one giant step back in my attitude.
How can this be? I’m a Christian, after all. I’ve served overseas as a missionary. I’m a fairly good person. I don’t even have children at home to deal with!
Yet, one day, I don’t have a care in the world; I’m resting in my “God’s got this” state of mind, and then the smallest thing will set me off.
- I can’t figure out what to eat.
- I find out my scale was off, so when I thought I was losing weight I wasn’t.
- I take a small criticism and blow it up.
- I, I, I…
Do you see where this is going? It’s come to me as well.
We are creatures of habit, whether we want to believe it or not. When our routine is disrupted, the habitual, normative reactions we have are suddenly off-kilter. I think I’m making progress to the next level, when I’m suddenly eaten by a monster or hit by a flying pig and fall to the bottom. All I want to see is the sign that reads:
Please progress to the next level.
Thankfully…
The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.*
Life is not a video game. So, in the meantime, I must decrease, so he can increase in my life, my words, my deeds…and my attitude.
If I am truly in Christ and filled with his Spirit, I will strive to:
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than [myself]. [I] should look not to [my] own interests, but rather to the interests of others [and] adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus.*
The world knocking you down? Do a re-set of self and stand back up, not for yourself, but Christ, and move forward.
Grace and Peace
*Psalm 103:8-14 (NIV)
*Philippians 2:3-5 (CSB)