Tower Defense Games and the Bible

When I'm bored, I sometimes play a good tower defense (TD) game on line. For those unfamiliar with these games, the concept is simple: You buy towers so you can shoot the baddies trying to invade your base. Every time you kill one, you get some money so you can build more towers or upgrade yours so you can take on the next (and tougher) wave of baddies. There are little twists to each, but the concept is essentially the same in all.

Without an invasion, I can't get any more money to build what I want to build. Also, if I just stockpile cash long enough, I lose because the enemies will become so powerful that they overwhelm me.

Our Christian walk is a lot like TD games in a way. We pray for patience and what do we get? Situations that will build our patience. We pray for peace, and we get trials that try to destroy it. We pray for purity, and we're inundated with temptations. God doesn't just give us the traits that we ask for. He allows us to have opportunities to grow in them. I think this is for three reasons: 1. that we can better understand others and help them, 2. that we depend on Him to change us, and 3. most importantly, our hearts don't really want to change of themselves.

For the first, if change were easy, we would not be able to relate to those who are struggling with it. One of my friends barely struggles with lust at all. Most of the time, he doesn't even think about it. Thus, he finds it difficult to understand what the rest of us are going through. When we don't understand others' struggles, it's easy to be judgmental of them and that's not how we're supposed to treat others.

For the second, if change were easy, we wouldn't depend on God or need Him for the rest of our lives on earth. If we could simply pray once for peace, purity, wisdom, patience, and other virtues and get all of them that we needed, we wouldn't need God for anything. God wants us to rely on Him. He wants us to know that it is He who has helped us overcome our struggles and He who is perfecting us, not ourselves.

And lastly, let's face it: if we had a genie and our hearts were giving the wishes, I'm really not sure how many, if any, of the people I know would cry out for more of God with one of their wishes. At times, yes - at times, I do - but overall, I know part of my heart and I know the Bible says that my heart is deceitful above all things. Anything good that's in there is the result of God working in it, because left to strictly my own heart's desires, my wishes would be for my own selfish gain.

There's not really a motivational point to this particular entry. It's just something to think about when we wonder why it's so difficult for us to become who we say we want to be.