This is the text copy of the devotion I presented in my Souls Week stream of Hyper Light Drifter on Sunday, October 27, 2024. You can watch/listen to the highlight on Twitch by clicking here.
My original plan for the Extra Life marathon this week was a joke. Not in the sense that it was going to be terrible, but that I found it amusing and felt others would, too. That plan? Make myself suffer through a Dark Souls game, dying repeatedly for the entertainment of viewers, letting them take joy in my frustrations and potentially donate pity dollars to Extra Life. People have always enjoyed the Souls games simply because they’re difficult, and it took me a long time to understand why that was good in their mind.
Welcome to Souls Week: my week-long marathon for Extra Life, but also a series of discussions about why starting again and persistently struggling isn’t as bad as it sounds. This is Day 1: Seeking a Cure in a Fallen World.
When I first felt the call to make this week into an opportunity to share my faith with others, I wasn’t sure how I wanted to go about it. I’ve had notable influence from other Christian streamers (thanks XtianNinja!) but knew right away that I couldn’t approach this the way he and others do. I am a quieter person in general, which makes streaming a challenge in itself. But then it just hit me one day that Soulslike games are the gaming equivalent of my favorite topic: sanctification. We’ll touch on that a little bit every day, but right now I actually want to talk about Alx Preston.
Today’s game, Hyper Light Drifter, was created by an indie developer called Heart Machine. For the last 8 years I didn’t think much of that fact. I have owned the game for nearly as long but never taken the time to play it. I own a lot of games like that simply because I invested in Humble Choice and various other game bundling sites in an effort to provide diversity in my streams and game key giveaways. In sitting down recently to actually research more about the game and the themes I could focus on for a devotion, I learned that Alx Preston has been living a Soulslike life from the day he was born. He was born with a congenital heart disease which required him to have open heart surgery when he was only a year old, leading to ongoing digestive and immune system issues and multiple hospitalizations–and eventually he had to have a pacemaker installed. Because of a particularly bad hospitalization as an adult, when he weighed a scant 90 lbs and could only eat through a tube in his stomach, he decided he needed to do more than simply survive: he needed to share his creativity with others. He founded his own game development studio and named it… Heart Machine.
I can’t speak on whether or not Alx is a saved individual, but his decision to put Hyper Light Drifter in motion not only gave us a wonderful game (funded by a Kickstarter that raised almost 24 times the amount it set out to) it mirrors the subgenre his game epitomizes. When you start up a Soulslike game, you generally know it is going to be a struggle. Every inch of progress, every good thing, is hard-won through sheer force of will and persistence in effort. It takes a lot of trial and error to improve, to learn the layout, the enemies, the strategies for success. There’s the common saying that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, but in the case of soulslike games it’s more along the lines of when it kills you, you have to come back stronger.
This repetition isn’t easy. It’s exhausting in Soulslike games and it’s exhausting in life. You might be thinking this sounds depressing. You might even be considering finding another channel or video to watch. It’s okay–I have good news, and I’ll get to it in just a minute!
In the game Hyper Light Drifter, the main character was inspired by Alx himself: he has a terminal illness and he’s seeking a cure in the fallen world around him. Despite everything being bleak, he perseveres. He keeps on doing what he can to survive and discover what’s been lost in order to move forward. He is seeking out hope. While I would never dream of spoiling the game for anyone who hasn’t played it, I can at least talk about what this means for us in our everyday lives.
Life is a struggle, whether we are saved or not–but even more so for the saved! God doesn’t promise sunshine and rainbows to Christians. In fact, he promises that people will hate us simply because of him (Matthew 10:22 says: “You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.”). We are still expected to persevere, to live in accordance with his word (which isn’t easy), and do all things for His glory. The problem? We’re all a bunch of helpless sinners. Helpless, but not hopeless. In this fallen world of ours, we are all born as sinners, but there is a cure! Since the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, death has been in the world. The beautiful creation that God made was tainted with sin, and only a sacrifice can atone for it. In His great love and mercy (and perhaps His omniscience about how populated the world would come to be), he provided the perfect sacrifice for us:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
–John 3:16-17
That is the good news–the gospel. So long as we believe, we accept Jesus into our hearts and trust in Him, we are given a new life. We are set free from sin and set apart from worldly ideals and expectations (John 15:19 says: “If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.”). The world itself remains fallen, with many lost sinners living in it, but the cure is readily available to those who strive for it.
Accepting this gospel, accepting Jesus into our lives, is salvation. Everything between it and when we leave this world? Well, that’s sanctification, and we’ll spend the rest of the week discussing it. If you’re listening and you aren’t sure about your salvation, please reach out and let me know. The free gift of salvation is for everyone!
God, thank you so much for every listener hearing my words tonight, whether they’re watching the stream or checking out the video at a later time. Every one of them is precious and loved by you, and I know you want nothing more than to have a closer relationship with them. I pray that those who are lost or have strayed will hear you calling out to them and know that they are the one whom the shepherd leaves the ninety-nine to find. Please do a work in them that only you can do. In your holy name I pray. Amen.
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