I’ve been exposing myself to a mixture of entertaining fiction via computer game walk-throughs. It was provocative in a way.
Let me first get the junk out of the way: Some of the adventure stuff is hopelessly stupid. The context is portraying a world of espionage adventure. Some major figure in the storyline is morally idealistic and can’t simply follow deeply cynical orders, but takes the mission personally. It’s like a personal vendetta. People like that get killed, of course, and destroy things worse than if they had followed orders.
Those people exist, but they never get selected for espionage work. Part of the vetting scheme used by spy agencies is making sure you are cynical enough to not take it personally when the mission suddenly changes drastically in the middle, or when you realize that you weren’t told everything. I hate it when fiction refuses to recognize that, as if the people playing the game wouldn’t be willing to invest their time and energy unless there was some hokey altruistic hero element. The people who write the story lines for these games are imbeciles. I’ve seen reviews that back my contention on this.
Once in a while you stumble across a story line that reaches above that juvenile level. There’s still plenty of shoot-em-up, but the underlying plot keeps an eye on something in human nature itself. It realizes that we need a driving force, something bigger than ourselves so that we can exercise some hope and commitment. Here’s the thing: We can turn into lower creatures who simply become really good cynical spies and carry out the mission simply for the sake of adventure. But even that is merely a mask for some kind of deep commitment, which works out to personal excellence. There’s a place for those folks. In fact, they outnumber the dreamer kind, and they always will.
And then there are some of us God grants a vision that makes us some of both. On the one hand, I do have visions and dreams, but God showed me that the myth of great human accomplishment is a dead end. On the other hand, since I realize that, I’m perfectly willing to enjoy the adventure of following someone else’s dreams of human achievement as the best place to work to bring my own dreams to reality. That’s because my dreams no longer have anything to do with the common myth of Utopian struggles.
My visions ignore all that stuff. I have a vision of people who discover the power of the heart-led way. Not just the few of us scattered over the face of the earth, connecting only online. I dream of the day when each of us can find ourselves in a small community of people who have discovered this amazing gift and can fellowship face to face. You and I are the pathfinders for this kind of faith community stuff; we are the missionaries. For reasons God alone can understand, we are chosen as the vanguard. We were pushed through the necessary dramatic changes so that we could embrace this thing before it makes sense to anyone else. And as we pass into a global crisis period, our ability to operate on a heart-led conviction of divine moral truth is like a net that can catch a few of those who will be blown out of their old reality and will be tumbling into the abyss.
Tribulation is nothing to fear unless you don’t know why it’s there. Tribulation is the place where our light shines brightest. It’s where we find ourselves when we are closest to our Creator.
