A Different Perspective

Recently during the times when I rest, I have been exploring some old games on my computer. By old, I mean mid-80’s and early 90’s classic games.

One such game I have been playing and enjoying is called “Castles 2”, which I first bought in 1996, yet didn’t fully appreciate until I dug it out a few days ago.

In the game, you play the role of a king who must conquer lands while managing the resources and people of your own kingdom.

Now I’m sure that many of you are wondering why I am mentioning this game to you all here…. Well the reason is that the Lord has been using this game to open my eyes and teach me some interesting truths regarding the nature, character and even some of the thought processes of God.

You see, as I have been playing the role of a king, and managing the needs, wants, requests and complaints of my mostly loyal (yet sometimes not!) subjects in my kingdom, I have gained some valuable insight into sometimes why the Lord seems to respond the way He does to our requests.

One such example is when I was performing an in-game task to Mine Gold, and while I was doing that, one of my allies would basically pester me every few minutes asking me for Gold.

Now I fully intended to support my ally by giving him the Gold he needed, but at that moment, I was still preparing it for the perfect moment, which my ally could not see. As a result, when I refused to pay the Gold immediately, the relations with my ally began to fall through until eventually we almost became enemies.

What I have come to realize from this is that many of us also do the same thing with God. We ask Him for things, even things which He fully intends to deliver, but we want them in our time instead of His time. Then, when we do not receive what we ask for immediately, we assume He is holding out on us or that He no longer loves us anymore; which is exactly what the enemy would want us to think, yet it is not true!

The simple truth as said by Jesus is found in Acts 1:7:

“And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.” 

Quite basically, there are some things that we just don’t need to know! In-fact, the Lord sometimes (at least I have found it so in my own life)  uses these unknown times to test and strengthen our faith in trusting Him for His provision and faithfulness when we do not know the exact time that His answer will come, but to simply trust Him that it is already “in the bank and paid for” because He is always faithful and His word is always true. To be clear, it’s not that He is holding something back on purpose as some would think of the word “test”, but that the delay is simply there and God turns the end result into something for our benefit and growth.

So the Lord can use anything, even an old classic game to teach us truths about Him if we remain open to listen. I hope that this has been as informative for you as it has been for me, and may it help us all to trust the Lord more and stay connected to Him without fear or worry regarding His faithfulness and trustworthiness. Even though we may not always see everything He is doing, He is always looking out for us. Praise His Name forever!