#154-Prayer as a video game

One of my bff's made a comment and it went something like this...


"You know what I get frustrated about? How it takes me a long time in prayer to be able to speak in tongues but yet some people can just speak it tongues in the first 30 seconds of prayer..."


And not within one minute later did we have the idea for this post...


You see for the vast majority of us....Prayer can be a very tenacious effort.....


Like a video game...


Of course the ultimate goal of a video game is to defeat the game, the process itself is where the enjoyment is to be had, and much effort and failures along the way as well...


So for most of us we start prayer like the first level of a video game....

Level 1

For beginners, the first level is all about learning the controls....the A button jumps and the B button shoots fireballs...


In prayer, like the need to understand the controls in a video game, it's the easy but necessary stuff one must learn in order to play the game (who you are praying to, what we are praying for, the need for prayer, etc...)


But for the the veteran of prayer, the first level of prayer can be done in your sleep like the first level of a video game. It's quite routine. Usually it revolves around the same 5 or 10 phrases of praise and thankfulness that we have grown so customary too (regretfully we do level 1 so much, that a lot of times it can lose it's meaning)....Bottom Line: Our level 1 is the praise and thanksgiving to God of Who He is. Before we can even begin to think about ourselves and our needs, we must put ourselves into perspective of the Infinite God before us and his displays of love on that cross and resurrection.


If you want to advance anywhere in prayer, you must have the praise. Like a video game, you cannot bypass level 1 at all. It is an absolute necessity.

Obstacles

Of course in our generation, we can be guilty of the sin of distraction far more than those before us. We may be headlong in our video game of prayer, but alas there are many obstacles that we will face in prayer that are not necessarily wrought by the Enemy himself, but rather are there in our own mental weaknesses and our inability to stay focused. Text messages, phone calls, visual distractions, facebook...all of these serve as possible barriers that while minute in themselves can certainly be our ends in the video game of prayer....

Bad Guys

Perhaps the most peculiar part  of prayer for the younger generation is spiritual warfare, where in our prayers, we may become face to face with these strange demonic forces that are wreaking spiritual havoc in our material universe. It's such a weird aspect to our prayer, that more times than not we are just ignoring the spiritual realm as if like the child who covers his eyes with his hands will somehow make the fire he started in his bedroom nonexistent. Needless to say, while not necessary for our ability to pray, and no matter how much we want to ignore the spiritual unseen universe because it's far too vague and irrational, we must always remember it is present and quite biblical. 

At the same token,  as for those who do endeavor consistently to fight the demons in prayer...it is here more than anyone else that their prayer life reflects that of an actual video game...

Defeat by obstacle or by enemy can lead to....

Dying/Restarts

Ah the painful agony of death in the video game. Of course you don't physically die, but it's more about the time you wasted in getting to a certain point in the video game and having to start all over again either at the beginning of the level or the checkpoint.

Should you fall victim to the mental traps of distraction, your train of thought is lost and it's like all your momentum you had going into that prayer is lost.....

Should the enemy get you down enough, you may even have trouble defeating level 1 of prayer...

Either way, when we die in prayer, we learn how much we need some kind of supernatural help to get us by. And thus we learn our weakness (repentance), and how great it is that our ability to defeat the prayer game is not up to our finite abilities but rather aided along the way by a  strategy guide of sorts (i.e. Bible).

Okay, while I could get loss in many other terrible half-hearted analogies between video game and prayer, I will jump to the whole reason why the post was created...

The Boss

Okay, while the comparison here is no way a perfect analogy...but bare with me...

For many of us apostolics, the ultimate ends of prayer is speaking in tongues....

Since the initial evidence of the holy ghost in us is speaking in tongues, we somehow have culturally made the speaking tongues the desired climax of prayer (although, interestingly, Paul lists those who have the gift of tongues as the least of all offices within the church)....Whether for better or worse, speaking in tongues is the epitome of the apostolic prayerful experience....

And as my friend pointed out, you gotta go a long way in prayer to get to the point where your spirit is impressed to speak these divine utterances which no man can understand.....

Tongues then is the final boss at the last level (or the last level in each series of levels).

But what about those my friend brought up who seem to have it so good that there is no challenge to get to tongues but rather are heard praying in tongues less than a minute into prayer?

Game Cheats/Secret Code

.....(prepare for complete nostalgic early-to-mid-90's flashback).....

It seems that some have been born with the unique ability to put in cheat codes in their prayer to have infinite health in their prayer life and also to skip levels at will...

It is they who can speak in tongues at will....

And it is them whose house I will go over constantly to play the video game at....

Because who doesn't love infinite ammo and the ability to skip levels when a level gets too difficult?