At some point everyone in their life has the feel of complete loss. The ‘I’m at the end of my rope’ feeling where there is little or no hope left. Drowning in a swamp of sorrow. Now some peoples feeling of despair may be less realistic than others. For example, I doubt that someone having high school social issues is truly in as much despair as someone about to be evicted from their home, or lose their spouse.
The World of Warcraft zone ‘Swamp of Sorrows’ makes me think of such moments, and not just title, the landscape. The sky is darkened, the air is thick with the stench of death and if the creatures don’t kill you, the opposing fraction of players will.
In the center of this Swamp is a truly sunken temple, which is actually the dungeons name, ‘Sunken Temple.’ It is a five man instance in which you face trolls, dragons, snakes, and creatures beyond description. The cartoon style of the animations in World of Warcraft make these creatures far from scary, but in our own sunken temples, the creatures are far more hair raising.
“You realize, don’t you, that you are the temple of God, and God himself is present in you? No one will get by with vandalizing God’s temple, you can be sure of that. God’s temple is sacred—and you, remember, are the temple.” 1 Corinthians 3:16 (The Message)
I cannot say that I have taken very good care of my temple, it is quite in fact, a sunken temple, in a swamp of sorrow.
I’ve had issues with lust, and let the excuse, ‘everyone guy has a problem with it there is nothing i can do about it,’ keep me from dealing with it.
I have had idols, including World of Warcraft, that I have put before God.
I’ve stolen and lied to those who cared about me.
I let fear control my life.
And I still struggle with these things on a daily basis. Last night I looked at porn sadly. No one is perfect. For Romans 3:23-24 (The Message) says, “For there is no difference between us and them in this. Since we’ve compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ.”
Now in this verse to give some context, you have to remember when Paul, the writer of Romans, says “us and them” he isn’t referring to christians and non-christians. He is referring to Jews and Gentiles. I mistakenly thought of this backwards as a younger believer. I thought, that this was saying, that it was fine to form a ‘long and sorry record as a sinner’ and be a Christian.
You still have to remember, that just because we are Christians does not mean we won’t form a long and sorry record as sinners, I am not saying that at all! I am simply saying its not alright to go around with the mindset that there is nothing we can do about. If we think like that all we will be living in is a nasty moldy sunken temple. Also, there is a difference between non-christians and christians, but it’
God never intended for us to live in a swamp nor a sunken temple. If you read over the extremely detailed and beautiful description of God’s instructions to the Israelites in the old testament, God’s dwelling place among the Israelites was far from that! It was more like Stormwind city.
For King david of the Old Testament wrote, “For you have been my refuge, a strong tower against the foe.” in Psalm 61:3 (New International Version) and he is this for us today as well! Like if your being chased by a horde in Westfall as a lowbie, because you were stupid enough to attack him, like we are stupid enough to think we can be sin free and redeemed without God’s help and grace, and you get to the guards just in time, and they all gang up on the horde and you are saved. It’s a good feeling to those of you who know what I am talking about and I know some of you reading this are probably thinking, ‘what the heck is he talking about ?.?’ Those of you in that group have my apologies, but I’m a geek and a gamer, it is who God made me.
Now I do not write this because i claim to have any great knowledge or wisdom. I barely graduated from high school because of emotional scars, which I’m still dealing with, that nearly ruined my life. I am just an average joe. Now you may not be an average joe, like in World of Warcraft, we cannot all be dps (damage per second classes) some of us are meant to shine with the great abilities God has gifted us with. Some of us were meant to be the tanks and healers, those who stand out and man the front lines. Now hopefully in the game your healer is more of in the back lines hoping around healing than in the front but we cannot all get good groups can we. Yet look at Peter, he was only a dps and one of Jesus closes disciples during his time here on earth, he would of been a arms rogue or fury warrior the way he whipped out that sword and took off the guards ear while Jesus was being arrested.
Jokes aside, ask you this, please pray for me, pray that my soul will continue to have a desire to praise and seek God rather than turn to my own selfish and sinful ways. Pray that God will help me overcome my fears. To top off all my imperfections, I am a bit of an agoraphobic, for those of you who do not know what that means, its someone who is afraid to leave a safe place or area, or go into crowded public places like grocery stores, malls or even have the confidence to go into traffic during rush hour.
You may laugh at this, or think why should I listen to someone with so many problems. That i leave to you and God. I cannot say I feel a special calling from God to write this, nor can I honestly claim that any of this was inspired by him. I did pray before I started writing though for his guidance, and I pray now that he will use something in this to touch someone, somewhere. Someone like me, or not like me, in a way that i cannot even imagine.
God bless
P.S If you need pray, have any questions or comments about me or anything I’ve written. Even if you wish to debate something I’ve said, feel free to email me.
Tags: Christian, Gamer, Geek, World of Warcraft
