Love, Strife, and Video Games

I have spent a lot of time with my son here lately with it being Christmas break and all, and we have had some of the best times. We have also had some of our biggest arguments. He is 4, and the beautiful thing about it is I can just send him to his room or turn off what we are arguing about. Here lately every time we play video games together we do nothing but argue and fight. You would think that such a thing would bring people together, but it doesn’t. Recently we got two new games for our PS2, and they have been the primary cause for our turmoil. (Madagascar 2 & Lego Indiana Jones) Both are excellent games, but very frustrating. The game play is fair, but the screen view is awful. My son is very talented at video games, and when I play with him I expect him to follow my lead. When he doesn’t I try and tell him how to do it, and he becomes frustrated and the war is on. I get so mad because he doesn’t listen to me. If he would just listen to my advice things would go so much smoother, and we would accomplish a whole lot more.  I don’t know if this will ever change, but I am learning to choose the games we play together a whole lot more wisely. We should have gotten a Wii.

Anyways, when I started thinking about all of this in my frustration I realized that many times we are the same way with God. God is guiding us through life, and we are just too stubborn to let him take the lead. We think that we can beat the dragons on our own, or solve the mystery of the puzzle by ourselves when in reality it is impossible to go to the next level without two people. Especially in “Lego Indiana Jones”.  One hundred percent of the time you are playing with two characters, and it is impossible to beat the game with only one character, and it is the same way with our lives. It is  impossible to be victorious in life on our own, because we require more characters to progress. In Lego Indiana Jones you have to be a girl to jump high, you have to be small in order to crawl through little spaces, and you have to be certain people in order for doors to be opened. That is the way our lives are. We need Jesus to save us, we need God to direct us and open doors, and we need the Holy Spirit to convict and comfort us. Then there are also all the other little Lego people that God has put in our lives to help us along the way.  It is amazing how God can use such little things as video games to teach us such big lessons. 

“Learn something in everything” – Justin Williams