Unshackled Echo ~ April 26, 2019 ~ Jesus Doesn't Play That Way

Leah introduced me to a new game. It's called Slither.io, and in my opinion it works best on tablets but can be played on a laptop or desktop. It's fun. It's frustrating. It's highly addictive. It's a little like a twisted version of Pac Man, but a  multiplayer game where there are no ghosts. It's every man for himself, eating as many dots of light as possible to make you grow without being killed by the other players. If you run into someone, you die and become balls of light, which make others bigger as they eat them. If you cause someone to run into you, or even if they run into you by accident, they die and you get to join the feeding frenzy.

As a free multiplayer game there are as many different approaches to the game as there are different kinds of people. There are the leave me alone to scavenge, I won't hurt you, don't hurt me types. The I won't go after you if you don't go after me, but if you try to kill me I will kill you types. There are the psychopaths out to kill everyone. There are bullies, always picking on those littler than themselves. And that's about it. I have seen my wonderful wife play protector. She  actively tried to protect some little guys from the bullies and went after those players that were playing mean, but I haven't witnessed much of that in the actions of others.

The thought occurred to me that Leah's Punisher vigilantism, you're a crazy mean killer so I'm going to kill you before you can kill that innocent guy who isn't so innocent, is as close to a Christian play style as I've seen. Not that being a vigilante is a good way to be a Christian or shows the light and love of Christ in any stretch of the imagination, but God is a protector of the weak. Contrary to popular opinion, God does not help those who help themselves. He helps those who realize that they can't help themselves. So this I will protect the weak from the bully is honorable, and I haven't seen much of it. I definitely don't play that way. After all, it's a game, right?

Yes, it's a game, and there's no reason to play this, or any game, not to win.. It doesn't mean you're not a good Christian if you are a psycho killer in Slither, or even a bully (but if you're a bully Leah may try to kill you).

But you know what I haven't seen? I haven't seen anyone stay small so that others can eat all the light. I haven't seen anyone sacrifice themselves for the benefit of everyone else. I haven't seen anyone play that game like Jesus did this thing called life. And that's because you can't win that way. It's not because it's just a game and nobody's really getting hurt and you don't have to feel bad for being a jerk and killing me. It's because it's just not in our nature, not in a game any more than in life. We simply can't live sacrificial lives, laying down our lives for our family and friends, much less our enemies. C'mon, even as a Christian, most of us balk at the idea, even at the idea, of wanting to.

Disagree? Ask yourself this. A man calls you up and informs you that he has a team, and this team has an extremist terrorist captured who is responsible for the deaths of innocent children and Christians and who, if freed, will most likely be responsible for more of the same. They have a politician diametrically opposed to everything that you believe in who may actually be able to pull off remaking the country you claim to love in their image. And there is a nice old lady, who as far as you know has never hurt anyone seriously and may never do so. He tells you he'll free one or more of these three if you tell him to. You have the power to save one, two or three lives right then, but if you save anyone, a sniper is going to shoot you in the head, and you'll die Who do you save? Yourself?

I would. Honestly it would take a miracle and some crystal clear communication from God for me to do any differently. Die for the terrorist or the sleezeball politician? No thank you. And the old lady may deserve it more in my opinion, but she's lived her life. Why sacrifice my growing old with my wife to give someone I don't know an extra year or three? No, I don't think that way when I'm playing games, and I surely don't when it comes to living life. None of us do. We may lay down our life for our brothers-in-arms or family or even a close friend or innocent child, but even then there is an implied Tom Hanks laying there bleeding out and gasping out, "Earn this."

I don't want to die for you any more than you desire to die for me. But Jesus did. He died for that terrorist, for the politician, for the young, the old, the good, the bad, the rich, the poor, the gay, straight and not a clue. He died for me. He died for you. When we were enemies, bullies and failures, when we had no hope, no chance and no ability to ever earn or deserve His sacrifice or His mercy, He died for us all. And without demanding that we pay it back, that it change us, that we stop one single thing. Bullies can keep being bullies. Terrorists can still terrorize. Thieves can keep stealing. No one is forced into compliance or conforming with God's will or ways. But for those who want to be free, for those who are sick of life the way it is when they try to manage it, for those who want a life worth living, then that sacrifice Christ freely made, before we even realized we needed it, is our ticket to something better.

He made the way for us to not be who and what we were before. He set the captives free. He cleaned up the junkie and the drunk, and made pure the prostitute, the killer and bully. There is nothing about your past that could possibly disqualify you or bring a higher cost than He paid. There is nothing in you, about you, or how you are that you are ashamed of that He doesn't know about even more than you. And He still loves you. He still loves me. Isn't that amazing?!

Understanding that you are loved by God, as you are, unearned, undeserved, with no chance of being good enough, that He loves you as you are and not as you should be, but that He also loves you enough not to leave you as you are, will change your life, make you new, make you clean...that my friend, will put a whole new outlook on life That will make a difference the world can see like a lighthouse shining in the night That's how Jesus did it when it mattered. That's what he did for you and for me. He died so we could live. And never does He ask us to earn it. And He never said, like I say to Slither.io players, even thought they can't hear me, before I turn on them, that if you didn't try to hurt me I wouldn't try to kill you.

Today's Unshackled Echo was previously published on

April 26, 2016.

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