JohnnyBGamer

Sincerity

¹⁶ The people answered, “We’d never forsake God! Never! We’d never leave God to worship other gods.

^17-18 “God is our God! He brought up our ancestors from Egypt and from slave conditions. He did all those great signs while we watched. He has kept his eye on us all along the roads we’ve traveled and among the nations we’ve passed through. Just for us he drove out all the nations, Amorites and all, who lived in the land.

“Count us in: We too are going to worship God. He’s our God.”

^19-20 Then Joshua told the people: “You can’t do it; you’re not able to worship God. He is a holy God. He is a jealous God. He won’t put up with your fooling around and sinning. When you leave God and take up the worship of foreign gods, he’ll turn right around and come down on you hard. He’ll put an end to you—and after all the good he has done for you!”

²¹ But the people told Joshua: “No! No! We worship God!”

²² And so Joshua addressed the people: “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen God for yourselves—to worship him.”

And they said, “We are witnesses.”

²³ Joshua said, “Now get rid of all the foreign gods you have with you. Say an unqualified Yes to God, the God of Israel.”

²⁴ The people answered Joshua, “We will worship God. What he says, we’ll do.”

Joshua 24:16-24 (The Message)

I read this passage last week during a devotional time in the morning. I was struck by the sincerity of the Israelites. However, as history would show, the Israelites continually would stumble and walk away from God. Thankfully God is a God that judges the heart; thankfully, He pursues us even when we don’t want to be pursued. In reading about the Old Testament struggles of the Israelites, I often feel myself wanting to scream at them, “how can you walk away from God when he just did ________?” I mean, these people experienced firsthand being led out of slavery in Egypt. I repeat, slavery! As much as I want to scream, I know that I am no better.

Looking back, I can see what God has done in my life. I can see how he led me across the United States in order to meet my wife. I have experienced rich blessings from God and yet I forget about those things while bogged down with everyday life. Issues at work, trouble with those around me, these things consume me and leave me wondering where God is in all of it. The thing is is that I fail, like the Israelites, to remember what God has done in my life. My heart is truly sincere in wanting to know God and follow him; my flesh, on the other hand, is indeed weak.

For the Love of Flight

WoWScrnShot_013111_101454 — Sadly, Jasmine decided to ditch me...for some guy named Aladdin.

Soaring, tumbling, freewheeling

Through an endless diamond sky…

Flying through the forests near Shattrath, I was suddenly struck with the thought that flying in World of Warcraft is lame. I mean, don’t be me wrong, I love the ability to take flight at any time. In fact, I absolutely dislike having to dismount from my flying mount. If I could fly everywhere in-game, I would. That said, the flight mechanics/ physics in WoW are rigid. Flap, flap, flap.

WoWScrnShot_020111_124117 — Locked and loaded for a bombing run. The Ewoks won't know what hit'em.

As I flew just below the forest canopy, I wondered why my mount doesn’t increase speed when flying downwards. Why doesn’t the flying mount have the same physics that govern airplane movement? Imagine the excitement this could bring to the game! Aeriel PvP, quests that involve air races, and dogfighting are but a few ideas that a flight mechanic overall could bring about.

In the end, I want my time spent soaring to not only be a convenient way to get from point A to point B, but to add to the storytelling and adventure.

Points

Achievements. Trophies. Icing on a video gamer’s cake.

The virtual playgrounds of Xbox LIVE and Playstation Network (PSN) each feature what basically amount to mini-games, the achievement/ trophy grind. In a battle that has no meaning, players try and see who can out achieve and out trophy their fellow gamer. Street cred in its digital essence.

I was recently playing through Uncharted, when I noticed I was receiving trophies for “50 headshots” and “100 kills with a pistol”. While I knew that these trophies really didn’t mean much, they kind of did. The more I played the more I noticed how much I liked receiving these in-game accomplishments. It was as if someone had come and patted me on the back, every once in awhile, for completing some soulless task.

Many of us work thankless jobs; jobs where negativity thrives in the absence of praise. These small, pointless, meaningless achievements and trophies are a breath of fresh air after a hard day of work. Even though I know that they mean nothing, ultimately they do. In the rush of everyday life, the rewards systems employed by these online networks reinforce that feeling that your actually achieving something for the time your investing.

One has to openly wonder though if all this icing is somehow fattening our egos. Will we come to expect being praised for doing something as simple as getting dressed? I wonder…

(Somewhat Related: In marriage, the points don’t come as easily… Check out the video below!)

The Collection

Once upon a time, I collected video game systems and games as a hobby.

video game collection — *Not my collection. Would have been cool though...

I slowly built up my collection over time. A SEGA Saturn here; a random game there. Often I would plug in a misc. system and play some of the games I had for the fun of it. As time progressed, however, I found that my collection was gathering dust. Mt interests had changed. I mean, I still liked playing video games but didn’t feel the need to collect them anymore. So, I started to sell off the mounds of hardened plastic I had accumulated. I remember that upsetting me at first. No longer would I be able to play Panzer Dragoon for the heck of it. The collection that had been everything to me was being dwindled away into nothing.

We all find our identity, who we are, in the things that we believe and do. For a long time, my identity had been as a video game collector. With the selling of my collection, that was a title I would no longer bear. Perhaps this was a good thing though. Collecting chunks of plastic, consoles and games, only to let them collect dust and ultimately not be played makes no sense. It’s like me going into the public library, buying all the books up, only to never read them or let anyone else read them for that matter. “Captain it is simply not logical.”

Since the great video game purge, I have tried to limit my video game library. I have done this by becoming an avid user of Goozex, on online video game trading site. This has allowed me to obtain $60 games by getting rid of games that I no longer play. This has occasionally led me to slight dilemmas of which games to get rid of -the inner collector in me wanting to keep them all!- . As I stated above though, this makes no sense. Especially when I can take a game I no longer play and trade it in for something I actually will.

Worldview

A recent run-in with a game developer got thinking me about game creators/ developers and the lens with which they view the world.

Worldview – “A worldview describes a consistent (to a varying degree) and integral sense of existence and provides a framework for generating, sustaining, and applying knowledge.”

As a Christian, I view the world through the lens of the Bible and the man Jesus Christ. Within this framework, I make judgement calls and live life. Everything I process and believe is tainted, per se, by my Christian worldview. What happens though when a game creator/ developer offers a rival lens with which to view the world? For example, say they view the world through a “patriot”-driven, anti-government, atheist lens. What then? Would all the games they potentially work on be flavored by their personal opinions? To some extent, yes.

I write this today in hopes of bringing about awareness. Christian or not, we should all be evaluating the things we take in, be it in books, movies, music, or video games.