A Gaming Addiction

July 26, 2011 Leave a comment

I’m a big Words With Friends addict.  For the few of you out there who may not know about this game because you have been living in a remote jungle, or taking care of three kids or actually working at your job, WWF is an app (read application) much like the game of Scrabble in which you have a certain number of letter tiles and you spell out words on a game board, each word having to connect to the next word at some point.  It’s made for the iPhone, iPod, iTouch, iPad or any other iTech gadget created by Steve “I AM RICH” Jobs.   I downloaded it on my new iPhone about two years ago through the urging of Michelle, a very good friend, who was addicted herself and wanted me to go down the road to ruin along with her.  A day has seldom gone by during these past two years that I have not played the game.  I even signed up on a tournament site called WordsWithFriends.net where I receive a daily opponent and play in monthly tournaments with players who are far better than I could ever hope to be.  That’s how badly I’m hooked.

Here are a few reasons why I enjoy this game so much:  (1)  It taxes my brain.  While looking at those letter tiles and putting together the different possibilities of words in my head, I feel those brain cells running around, bumping into each other, jostling each other around.  That’s good.  That’s what they were made to do.  God made us to think.

(2)  It introduces me to a variety of people.  The game’s developers so designed WWF that you can play it by passing the game back and forth between a person seated next to you or you can play it with a random opponent the computer chooses for you who may be located halfway around the world.  (Besides players in the USA, I’ve played games with people in Hong Kong, Australia, and London.)  There’s a built-in feature that allows you to “chat” by texting messages back and forth while you’re playing.  I’ve even been able to witness to one player who didn’t play for several days, came back to play and apologized because she had received a bad report about her health and was very depressed.

(3)  It’s fun to win.  Games are played because winning is euphoric.  We love to watch sports because we get to win vicariously through the team we choose to support.  That’s not the same as winning a game we’ve played in ourselves.  That’s part of the addictive quality of WWF.

(4) It’s a game of both luck and skill.  The luck part of WWF is fascinating  because, much like real life, you must work with what you’ve been given.  Sometimes that’s good, and sometimes that’s bad.  No matter how extensive your vocabulary,  it’s difficult to make a word without a vowel.

If I’ve piqued (a good word to know when you have a “q” to play) your interest, and you want to play me, my user name is “Riverwalker.”  Chat with me while we play, and I’ll tell you why I chose that name.

Categories: Personal, Words With Friends Tags: , ,

Help Wanted?

July 21, 2011 Leave a comment

There is much talk today about unemployment.  In my Bible study class, we often pray for people who need jobs, who are interviewing for jobs or who are changing jobs.  My husband is about to retire from a position, essentially becoming unemployed or about to have no job.  So it is probably not a surprise that I have been meditating on a recent devotional thought I received from author and pastor John Piper.  He noted that God’s message to us, that is the gospel of Christ, is “not a ‘help-wanted’ sign but a ‘help available’ sign.” 

When Paul was preaching to the Athenians in Acts 17, he told them, “God is not served by human hands as though he needed anything.”  If God cannot be served, that is really bad news to anyone trying to “score points” with Him by religious ritual or evangelistic zeal or by observing His laws.   The rest of verses 24-25 says, “He himself gives to all people life and breath and all things.” Now this is really good news to anyone looking for the “help available” sign.  Jesus pointed out that he did not come to serve but to “give his life a ransom for many.”  (Mark 10:45)  That’s the help available for all who would come to Him for mercy and grace.  His arms are open wide.  His help is available.

Categories: Bible, Devotionals Tags: , ,

Musings on the Moment

February 22, 2010 Leave a comment

That’s what these are, just musings, just some thoughts, along my life’s journey. 

So, yes, I finally got an iPhone.  I can’t say I really wanted one when they were being hyped in the media or when I saw people standing in long lines to buy one, but when iPhone owners began to show me all they could “do” with their apps, then I began to at least wonder if I shouldn’t get one.  I mostly embrace technology, especially when it enables me to stretch beyond what I know, when it feeds me information and provides me with quick answers to all my “how” and “why” questions.

The actual moment of buying one came when my husband said he thought he needed one.  When it comes to technology we are opposites, so this announcement was a total surprise.  Why would he want such a technological marvel?  It was the technology that made it appealing to him.  It was the technology that made it easier for him to use his contact list.  It was the technology that made all the options easier to understand. than his old phone.  It was the technology that made navigating the phone as easy as touching a screen.  So we both got iPhones.

After two weeks of ownership, I’m faced with a spiritual problem.  There are so many things to look at, to read about, to laugh at, to play with that I find myself having to say “no” to picking up a cell phone!  And not because it’s ringing.  It’s the soft chime telling me someone has answered my challenge on Word With Friends.  It’s the desire to check out what kind of bird I just saw in the backyard by keying in a description on the Bird app.  It’s needing to know the word of the day from the Dictionary app.  As can happen with almost anything in our fallen sinful world, the iPhone had become a passionate distraction, drawing me away from a myriad of household, family and personal duties.

So, some self-control is definitely in order.  Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9:27, “I discipline my body and keep it under control.”  In doing so, he’s seeking to glorify God.  Now that’s a passion I can live with!

Categories: Bits and Pieces, Personal Tags: ,

Seen any signs?

February 11, 2010 Leave a comment

In my Bible study class I’m teaching through the Gospel of John.  It’s different from the other gospels for several reasons, but one of the main ones is that John wrote it after the other three chronological accounts (Matthew, Mark and Luke), and he structured his account with the knowledge that most readers would already know many of the events surrounding Jesus’ life, so he could concentrate on highlighting certain supernatural acts that Jesus did which served as signposts to lead the reader to “believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you might have life in his name.”  John 20:31.  This, by the way, is the reason John said he wrote his gospel.

These signposts or “signs” are pretty obvious in the gospel, especially after John deliberately labels the first two of them, calling them “the first of his miraculous signs” and then the “second miraculous sign.”  The pattern the reader discerns in the first two of the signs serves as a template for the rest of the gospel.  By the time Jesus arrives in Jerusalem for the week leading up to His crucifixion, there remains only one directional pointer to His being God’s Son–His resurrection. 

However, all but a few people completely missed these signs.  The disciples themselves saw them through a haze.  God was displaying His power, His beauty, His wisdom, His grace, His love and His truth, but they failed to see it.  Oh, they saw the gifts of bread or wine or healing, but they didn’t see beyond the gifts to the Giver.  Just think how it must have pleased Jesus if someone had praised Him more for being Him than for His gifts, if they were more content with Jesus Himself than with anything He could give them.

Signs from God confront us daily.  God displays Himself to us every day with His gifts.  May we not fail to recognize these signs of Him and glorify Him for who He is more than for what He gives.

Categories: Devotionals Tags: , ,

To Extol Is To Exult

February 1, 2010 Leave a comment

C. S. Lewis wrote in Reflections on the Psalms, “I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment.”   How true for us as we worship and share our joy of worship with others.  Someone recently related on Facebook how much they had enjoyed a certain church worship experience, praising the sense of His presence in the service.  I had attended that worship service and their praise made me rejoice in Him, completing my enjoyment of the experience.  Delighting in Him is why He made us.  Sharing that delight completes our enjoyment of Him.

Categories: Worship Tags: , , ,

Musings on the Moments

January 29, 2010 Leave a comment

That’s what these are, just musings, just some thoughts, along my life’s journey.

Snowy Day
We’ve been stuck in the house for two days, unable to get out because of an ice storm yesterday, and today the moisture has turned to snow.  The television stations reported power outages, massive accidents, water main breaks and hazardous driving conditions.  But the snow just kept coming down–large, lazy, silent snowflakes.  “How could something so beautiful,” I thought, “make everything so very bad?”  Was that what Eve thought when the serpent offered her the fruit?

Potato Soup
Four days ago when I called my mother, who lives in Indiana, she was excited about a new potato soup recipe.  She highly recommended it, said it was great comfort food, told me to “google it” on the web, and I promised her I would.  But I forgot about it.  Two days later in an email, she wanted to know if I had tried it.  I found it and printed it off right then, adding it to a stack of recipes I would try one day.  But with a second day of house confinement imposed upon us by the weather, I decided to turn to potato soup for comfort.  I can never remember making potato soup before.  It took only about 30 minutes, and I tweaked the recipe a little, adding more cheese and spices.  James and I both liked it, but we agreed I might not make it again until the next ice storm.  It was comfort food, but I think the comfort was in the making of it, the process of being creative and the anticipation of homemade soup on a cold winter day.  That’s the way it is with joy.  I find joy in Christ in the process of working out who He is calling me to be, in the creative processes He is using in my life and in the anticipation of future worship.  It’s like the Psalmist said, “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go into the house of the Lord.”  Psalm 122:1.  He was excited at just the prospect of worship.

Categories: Uncategorized Tags: , ,

Words That Say Think, Meditate, Contemplate This

January 26, 2010 Leave a comment

I love reading, probably go through a couple of fiction books a week, digest several chapters from a variety of books in preparation for the weekly Bible study I teach, and browse/surf countless webpages for research and entertainment.  Rising up from off the pages like signposts on a stretch of desert highway, some phrases catch my eye, make me strain to discern exactly how these words stir my soul, make me pause, cause me to catch my breath for just a second.  Here are a few from this week’s reading:

“Joy is not the absence of pain, but the presence of God.” –Teilhard de Chardin (quoted by Ron Dunn in his book When Heaven Is Silent.)  These words seemed to leap straight from the page to my heart because I was hurting for someone, feeling their pain, and their pain had become my pain, and I wanted to be rid of the pain, to regain my joy. No need to do that, though, I was reminded by this thought.  His presence was with me and this is my joy forevermore, even in my pain.

Jonathan Edwards wrote on our being satisfied with God :  “God is the highest good of the reasonable creature, and the enjoyment of Him is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied.”  Is this how I think about God?  Do I find enjoyment in Him?  Joy comes, I think, as a response to something I am experiencing.  Say, for instance, I am reading to my grandkids and they are delighting in the story and we are laughing and joking about the characters.  I’m enjoying this experience.  It gives me joy.  I believe we enjoy God in the same way, though it is far better than this earthly joy.  The more often we share His words together, the more often we talk together, the more enjoyment I find in Him and my soul is indeed satisfied in Him.

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