Are you a gamer?

- Heather Block, Layperson

February 27, 2025

key points from this story:

• Heather Block reflects on time spent gaming
• Her father viewed life as a game
• Choices in life can impact future outcomes
• Encourages considering eternal destiny
• Emphasizes importance of accepting Christ as Savior
• Provides prayer for those seeking spiritual guidance

I don't know about you but I find I can spend lots of time playing various games on my electronic devices. Whether it is playing Scrabble with my mom, or various other word games on my own, it is amazing how they can either fill time or eat up too much time!

My dad used to refer to "life" as a game. What he meant was there are opportunities and choices in life that can have a big impact on where you end up next. He had many sayings that I have grown to appreciate such as 'it's not necessarily more money that you need but what you are doing with what you have'; or another one was 'you can operate using creative management or crisis management, it's largely up to you'.

Obviously my dad knew that there were things that occurred in our lives that truly are out of our control, but he wanted us to think about the choices or opportunities we had coming to us and whether they would be ones that would ultimately bring us blessing or pain.

I can't help but feel the same holds true when we think about our eternal destiny. Some of us can be 'gamers' that way too; living life as best we can and figure we will worry about the hereafter later on. The only problem is we never know how long we have here on this earth or if we will even have time in our final moments to receive Christ as our Saviour.

If you are a life gamer may I encourage you to stop and ask yourself if you have taken advantage of the greatest opportunity of all time…the choice that changes EVERYTHING? Our loving Heavenly Father has done all the planning, has sent His only Son to die for our sin so that nothing can separate us from Him. We are always free to choose, but we are not free to choose the consequences of our choices. Scripture says, "Choose you this day who you will serve… but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" Joshua 24:15

What does this look like? We need to admit we are sinners and in need of a Saviour (as we can't save ourselves). We need to accept God's great gift of Salvation, freely offered to all and begin walking with the One who loves us and saves us. Acts 16:31 says, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved"

Games are a lot of fun and kept in perspective that can really broaden our life but don't play games with your eternal destiny. If you want to know that your future is secure you can pray a prayer like the following:

"Dear God, Thank you for loving me and sending Jesus to die on the cross for my sin. I know that I have done wrong things. Please forgive me for all my sin and come into my heart and life. Thank you that you have promised me a home with you in heaven one day. Help me to learn how to grow as one of your followers. In Jesus Name, Amen

If you prayed a prayer like this, be sure to tell someone. You can tell your pastor, a family member or a friend. That will be step one in growing