What a difference a year makes!

Incredible, the difference a year can bring. She drifted across the Gulf. Predictions about her path varied. She was going to come ashore here or there; she would be a category 5 – she wouldn’t be too bad. And we know now that Katrina’s impact will be long-lasting. (The last week of September Paul Dial and I will travel to Pass Christian to evaluate what we can do to help our sister church in its recovery.) Ernesto drifted up and looked like a hurricane. Mysterious to the weather prognosticators, he just fizzled into rain and a little wind. What a difference a year makes.

I was working through some church history stuff yesterday. March 2004 Wellborn was at the height of its history in terms of numbers. Then the pastor resigned and things quickly began to change. That same month, I was going about my normal life as a missionary. I met with African pastors – individually and as a group. I attended a national board meeting for Youth for Christ – I was serving as its national Vice-Chairman. We had short-term missionaries from another organization into our home. I was leading prayer meetings and worship services as the interim pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church in town. On the personal front, I played some golf (even a tournament) and had the only manicure of my life. What a difference a year made! By then, I was at the Wellborn blueberry pancake breakfast, sitting with Pasco and Loretta Jarvis. Sundays found me preaching. Weekdays found me in meetings about the life of Wellborn Baptist Church. (Sadly, my agenda shows no golf being played.)

Life can change quickly. The challenge is to be in on the plan that the Lord has for us. What will this year bring?

Careful with that toy!

As I began to write today’s thought, a commercial ran across my television screen for an X-box video game called “Dead Rising”. According to the advertising, Dead Rising “follows the harrowing tale of Frank West, an overly zealous freelance photojournalist on a hunt for the scoop of a lifetime. In pursuit of a juicy lead, he makes his way to a small suburban town only to find that it has become overrun by zombies. He escapes to the local shopping mall, thinking it will be a bastion of safety but it turns out to be anything but. It will be a true struggle to survive the endless stream of undead, but players will have full reign of a realistic shopping center, utilizing anything they find to fight off the flesh-hungry mob…” According to the TV commercial, you can “chop ‘til you drop.”

So, get this straight. From the moment the game loads until the moment that a gamer turns it off, they will use anything available to “kill” zombies in a massive slaughter of every being that comes in front of them.

There is a violence within our soul. It is not an unnatural part of how God made us. When it is tied to the conscience that the Lord left as part of our soul, it is a valuable aspect of who we are. It is from that core that a man would leap to the defense of a woman who is being raped or that a woman would battle to save the life of her child. We see it when children take the part of soldiers or policemen as they battle against the “bad” elements.

The problem is that the violence within our soul can become perverted. Games like “Dead Rising” can become the training ground of mass murder. A constant diet of this type thing was part of the lifestyle of the two Columbine murderers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. And the product available to those two was tame compared to what is available in something like “Dead Rising”.

Warning to parents: These games are not this generation’s Pacman. Be careful of what you let them play. Be careful of what their friends play. And before you tell me to get a life, remember that we have one…a more abundant one. Somehow I can’t imagine Jesus sitting in front of a screen wiping out zombies.