This is the text copy of the devotion I presented in my Souls Week stream of Tails of Glimmervale on Friday, November 1, 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 6: Be Joyful in Hope.
We’ve talked about some pretty heavy topics this week! With the free gift of salvation as the starting point, we’ve covered issues that everyone deals with in their walk through life: the difficulties of simply choosing to be a Christian, repenting of sins so we can be reconciled to and restored by God, the myriad of inner struggles we deal with and need God’s help to overcome, and the many ways we all practice some form of idolatry (whether we realize it or not).
For my listeners who may not yet have a relationship with God, this might all sound extremely stressful, problematic, and even confusing. However, the good news is that the underlying message remains the same: We have hope in Jesus. Psalm 25:21 says, “May integrity and uprightness protect me, because my hope, Lord, is in you.” God is the cure in the fallen world, our support in daily lives and struggles, and can free us from the addiction to our idols. For Psalm 42:5 says, “Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.”
I know what you might be thinking. It’s easy to say to have hope because of God, but how do we go from feeling depressed and miserable to hopeful? Well here’s more good news for you: You don’t! It’s another one of those work-in-progress transitions that takes time. Opening a box of cake mix doesn’t mix, bake, cool, decorate, and eat a cake any more than choosing to trust God immediately makes you hopeful. You have to maintain your trust, pray to Him, and walk in obedience. It’s part of that Sanctification process I mentioned earlier this week–that process that lasts from the moment of your salvation until you leave this world. James 1:2-4 says, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
So just like a well-made soulslike game, you’ll have to endure things again and again, learning from those experiences to become stronger and wiser. A lot of non-Christians (and even some actual Christians) often question why God allows bad things to happen to good people, and this is the answer. It’s to make us into better versions of ourselves, as well as to show us that we can’t do it ourselves–we need Him. And as with Job, who are we to question God? He can see the big picture for his creation–we can’t.
Today’s game, Tails of Glimmervale, is described as a cozy soulslike–the characters are cute woodland animals and you discover the story and lore by talking to them. But the land has suffered from war and the main character, Willow the lynx, has a touch of greedy ambition as they seek out gold in their exploration. Willow is able to persevere and grow through the experiences, though, which provides hope. Romans 12:12 says, “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.” Patience isn’t something our modern society is adept at, and I haven’t always been either.
When I was in college in West Palm Beach, I had a job for a wealthy Palm Beach resident doing ghostwriting and editing. Palm Beach is on its own island, separated from West Palm Beach by the intercoastal waterway. Because of the distance and my lack of a car, my employer had a regular taxi driver who would pick me up on the college campus to drive me to and from his home. One day I was running late leaving my employer’s home because we had been going through photos to include in his book, and as luck would have it the bridge was up when we reached it in order to let some tall yachts pass through. I knew I could be late to my afternoon class back on campus–a class in which the professor would lock the door at the start of class–so I was clearly frustrated and impatient in the back seat. Seeing this, the taxi driver in his accented English smiled at me in the rearview mirror and simply said, “The more patience you are, the more patience you become.”
It’s been 18 years since that experience, and those words have stayed with me ever since. The words planted the seed to make me slow down and tackle things as they come instead of rushing headlong into problems. I pray first when I know I’m about to deal with something difficult, even if I know it won’t be pleasant for having prayed. I know the experience is refining me into a better person who can better serve my God and savior. And yes, I just barely made it to that afternoon class–but I made it.
God, thank you so much for every listener hearing my words today, whether they’re watching the stream or checking out the video at a later time. Help us see the opportunities in our lives to grow into better versions of ourselves, and to take joy in the hope you gave us in Jesus. I pray that you grant everyone patience, wisdom, and the strength to place their hope in you. In your holy name I pray. Amen.
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