Makes ya think, doesn’t it? This will be a new bi-weekly segment on my youtube channel Dragon House Studios. Feel free to request the next game I do, but do know that it’ll be through a Godly lens, so, don’t expect me to find a way to say something nice about Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoners!

Good morning all. As some of you may have noticed, it’s been quite quiet on both this and my gaming blog, http://www.xeawnsgamingcorner.com. The reason for this, is that I’ve been on a fast (that will last for another week, ending on the 20th). Part of this fast, in addition to the food bits, had the following rules, or covenants:

1) Limit your exposure to music that is not Christian
2) Limit your exposure to television that is not Christian
3) Limit your exposure to other forms of media (see: gaming) that is not Christian

Along side these rules, there were the usual food related ones. Limit the amount of meat you have, between certain hours (in our case 12 am to 12 pm) only consume water, tea, juice or coffee, come together to break your fast with your family, etcetera. Only…yeah…the Holy Spirit has a way of convicting us all differently, and for me the covenant read more like:

1) No music that is not Christian
2) No television that is not Christian
3) No other forms of media that are not Christian
4) Nothing but water between the hours of 12 am and 12 pm
5) One small meat dish for dinner
6) You can have an apple and an orange or two apples or two oranges at lunch…also a sandwich.

Yup, the Lord was hardcore on a brother! Now, interestingly enough, around two in the morning on the second day the Lord was like “You can read Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Narnia, C.S. Lewis and Tolkien were Christian writers. Their books were allegories for the Bible, so, Tolkien/Lewis books, movies, games are okay” which was nice, as I’m a pretty big gamer. The day after that, I was allowed to drink juice. The day after that I was allowed to drink tea. Also, on the second or third day I was allowed to listen to piano and string symphonies, which was super nice because I am not a fan of contemporary gospel.

Thus far I’ve maintained only watching Christian movies and television, which has been a bit of a challenge as well, and I’ve of course maintained the food part of the fast. This second week of the fast (it’s a fourteen day fast) I’ve been allowed more things by the Holy Spirit than the prior. I started out with just Ruzzle, a fun competitive word game that I play with my sister, later was allowed, or rather sunk to the level of playing, Bejeweled (I feel sick to my stomach that I got really, really good at that “game”…), later Tetris, and spent a good bit of time with Lord of the Rings: War in the North, a.k.a. the only good one.

Well, no, Conquest was decent. I guess. I stayed away from the Narnia games though. There are no good Narnia games…

Later I spent a bit of time with games such as Earth Defense Force 2017 for the Vita that weren’t Christian, but also weren’t antisemitic the same way, for instance, Gran Turismo would be. Except, ya know, EDF is an actual game and not a really pretty simulator that claims to be one. ZING!

In addition to the fasting, my sister and I have been doing the 90 Day Bible Plan, and each of us has been convicted in different areas. My father, for example, had no conviction with seeing Tom Cruise’s new action movie on a date night with my mom, pastor and pastor’s wife. The Holy Spirit convicts us all differently, and the covenant of the fast did say to “limit”, not to abstain from.

I didn’t really give it second thought why the Lord was being so hardcore with me on this fast; I’m generally of the frame of mind that when God gives you orders, you don’t question them, you strive to fulfill them. Of course, part of a fast is praying and seeking to understand God’s word and will in your life. I realized through prayer that a large part of why God was so strict with me, was to show me quite starkly how barren the harvest of the Lord is for out of the box Christians.

A bit of background on myself and my town, I’m from and live in Anchorage, Alaska. By and large, if you don’t drink, club and party, there isn’t a lot to do here if you aren’t the outdoorsy type. We have bars, strip clubs, movie theaters, and that’s really about it. If you don’t hike, hunt, fish, etc., you’re pretty hard pressed to find something to do around here.

My musical tastes are as follows:

A) Jazz
B) Swing Jazz
C) Lounge
D) House
E) Piano
F) Chamber Orchestra
G) J Rock
H) J Pop
I) K Rock
J) K Pop
K) Hip hop
L) …….SOME dubstep
M) Anything by Daft Punk and most things by Digitalism and Shinichi Osawa

So for me and Christian music there’s…..nothing. I’m not a fan of old school hymns; they’re too slow and…slow for my taste, and I’m not big into the usual kick up your heels organ styles of contemporary gospel. I was able to get into some Mary Mary, some Canton Jones and some Lecrae, but I also don’t do pop and thug/gangster/club rap, so by the second week I wanted to chuck my MP3 player at a wall!

I don’t really watch much TV, but I’m a fan of:

A) Film Noir
B) Romance (not “I love this guy but then I met you and now I’m torn”, I mean real romance)
C) Martial Arts
D) Asian Horror Cinema
E) Drama
F) Fantasy
G) Speculative Fiction

Presently my favorite American TV shows are

A) Once Upon a Time
B) Adventure Time
C) Regular Show

and I’m watching a number of anime as well. This brings the number of Christian movies and TV shows I can watch to a resounding…zero. There’s Lord of the Rings and Narnia, but I can’t take any of the Narnia movies seriously and you can only sit through the Lord of the Rings movies so many times. I did enjoy Run On, a comedy show involving the testimonies of three Christian actors, magicians and comics, and Six: The Mark of the Beast. I also saw Spirits Among Us…with all the production values of a someone with a camcorder.

Books? Fantasy, Speculative Fiction and Noir. Books for me? None save for Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. See what I’m getting at here? If you don’t fit into the mold of the contemporary conservative Christian, there is not a lot of gospel to be found. Spending this period of time away from

Oh wait! Video games. Yeah, there’s no Christian video games. Quite a ton of spitting on Christianity and God, mostly from Japanese game developers (sometimes European ones), but no, no Christian video games. Well, Lord of the Rings and Narnia, but again, Narnia video games are AWFUL and the LOTR ones aren’t much better. Exodus on the NES, a Gauntlet clone, was pretty decent…

So yes, if you don’t fit into the mold that the church tells you to, then there’s nothing for you. God’s word does not need to change, God’s word is just as relevant today as it was yesterday as it ever more shall be, but the way that the church seeks to deliver His word is irrelevant to the youth and young adults of today. We don’t like the style of your music, we can’t find Godly movies that aren’t cheesy and don’t have poor production values, there’s no Godly video games, there is nothing for us!

And is the solution of the church to find creative and innovative means to deliver the Word of God without sacrificing its meaning and purity? No. The solution of the church is to condemn us, to say our music is too loud and is unholy, to say our video games make us violent and unsociable, to say our movies are sacrilegious while you still get enjoy yours in the shadows.

Not every church is like this. Not every Christian is like this. But, enough are that the case for Christ is far harder won than needs be. Imagine, what if there was a Christian dubstep artist? I’m not a huge dubstep fan (unless I’m writing an intense fight scene and I feel like being angry, because dubstep pretty much has that effect on me :P), but lots of teens and young adults are. If there was Christian Dubstep people would be all over that! What about Christian lounge music? What about Christian horror movies? What about good Christian video games? I’m not talking about the four hundred different quiz games out there, I’m talking about games that depict the warriors of Chronicles, games that put a sword in one hand and a fireball in the other and have you cutting down armies of demons! RPG’s in sprawling fantasy worlds, shooters battling demons from another plane, fighting games, racing games, the whole nine yards!

And you don’t even necessarily have to throw a cheesy hallmark moment into the mix to get the point across! Simply say “God” instead of “Gods/Goddess”, simply say “Faith” instead of “Magic/Sorcery”, simply say Companion or Pet instead of “familiar”, it’s not that hard! You can do a ghost movie or a movie with demons after the heroes without offending Christianity! You can have action movies that don’t all revolve around a microchip or some documents with the mark of the beast, you can have fantasy movies with elves and goblins and trolls and swords and magi and be completely Biblically sound!

Youth, young adults, Christians everywhere, if you have an outside of the box ministry that the church is trying to stamp out, so long as you are sound by Biblical doctrine, pursue your dreams nonetheless! Do you want to do Christian metal? Do it! Do you want to write Christian fantasy? Write! Do you want to make Christian action movies! Do so! Your worship and your praise need not reflect the conservative views of the church as it is today, because the church as it is today is relevant by the Word of God, but irrelevant in many ways by its execution!

After all, if we kept everything by the “way it’s always been done”, we’d still be in turbans and sackcloth worshiping outside with clanging drums and veils a la the Book of Exodus. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but hey, I live in Alaska; IT’S COLD!!!

Sometimes I wonder, especially in my younger days, why it is/was that the heroes always wait until they’re pretty much dead to bust out with their final form or ultimate attack to wipe out the enemy. I saw one explanation for this, or rather was told by a friend, in the new Voltron series. The explanation was that if the heroes busted out with their ultimate attack at the beginning that alone wouldn’t be enough to defeat the enemy. On top of that, the hero would then be too drained and weary to finish the fight. I find this a reasonable explanation I suppose, though if it can’t kill your opponent in one strike I don’t really think it has any business being called your “Ultimate Attack”. I’m just sayin’.

Oh, by the way, the reason why I haven’t seen the new Voltron series despite being a fan of the original? “Voltron-riffic!”

Nuff’ said.

But I digress. Another explanation I’ve seen/heard is the one that was most common when I was younger. The idea was that the hero had to be pushed to the brink of death and truly realize what all could and would be lost if they didn’t push themselves enough to win and save their friends. This rush of power, hope and desperation would then push the hero to reach new heights and grasp power they didn’t realize that they had. The excuse for them getting their teeth kicked in when they’re older is of course that they grew derelict in their training during the years of lasting peace (despite all of them admitting that they always knew/feared that the evil they slew would one day return…)

The third and most obvious answer is because it adds to the dramatic tension and makes for a good story. I suppose many games/anime/movies/tv shows would be boring if the villain was all like “AND NOW HERO, WE WILL HAVE OUR-” and then the hero was all like “GREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAT” and the villain is like “Wait, what are you doing? We’re supposed to have a long drawn out-” and then the hero’s all “DIVIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” and then the villain is all “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!” and then he dies. Even so…you would have a lot more blood in you as opposed to on the floor if you took that approach.

A common scene in most every RPG is the “We’re all about to enter the penultimate ‘we might die here’ battle, so, let’s talk to everyone in our party and possibly make kissy face first” scene. This is a good scene to have, because in the hands of a good writer it allows you to see deeper into the characters involved. More importantly, we get to grasp a strong sense of humanity with our otherwise surreal heroes. We may not always identify with the spiky haired warrior with the broadsword or the fair skinned hero or flawless damsel, but we can identify with the mortality of death.

If any of us knew that we were about to walk into a situation where we might die, I think the prevailing sentiment would be to do what you’ve always wanted to first or else tie up whatever loose ends you might have. If I were going into my end of the world battle, there’s a lot I’d like to resolve first. I’d like to make sure that my father knows that I love him and respect him even if we don’t always see eye to eye. I’d like my mother to know that she is my gem and that she is the best mother I could possibly have asked for. I’d like my sister to be reminded that she is both my favorite person and my favorite toy in the whole world. I would like my nephew to know that I believe in him, and have faith in the wonderful things that he is already doing and will continue to grow to do. I’d like for all of my friends to know, well, I’d like them all to know Jesus, but working more with something I could do in half an hour I’d like them all to know that I am praying for them, and that life is too short to keep getting stopped up by our own hangups and miseries past.

I don’t have kids and I don’t have a special someone, but I do have a Pomeranian that I would totally be dumping off on my parents to take care of in my possible absence 😀

One thing that I would not do is sleep, probably. Not for any grand reason such as “Time is too short/too precious”, but really because I just function better under fire. I don’t know what it is, but when everything is chill I tend to procrastinate a lot. When there’s a crisis or things get down to the last minute though, that’s when I’m able to just calmly remove myself from the situation and resolve whatever is going on at the time. I tend to be better at solving other people’s problems than my own, as in the words of Alice “I give myself very good advice, but I seldom follow it”. My friends and loved ones will find themselves in a dreadful pickle, and I calm myself while everyone else is panicking and God deposits a solution.

I can’t help but smile as I write this; someone I know would say that statement is egotistical, but it’s really not. I’m simply blessed to keep a level head when something is outside of directly being in my path. Now, for reasons I can’t possibly explain I tend not to fly into full on panic mode, but lack the capacity to detach myself and find a solution without stressing when it’s my own problem. I’m sure there’s some buried psychological issue/wound/hangup somewhere in my past about that, but, eh. I’ve learned not to dwell to heavily on the past; it’s done and can’t be changed, only learned from.

So let’s get back to power. I wouldn’t sleep. When I think back to every other major or important battle that I’ve had to face, I tend not to sleep more than an hour, get a horrible excuse for a breakfast generally consisting of coffee, strawberry gummies and beef sticks (sometimes a muffin), showing up with a handful of minutes to spare thus giving myself no time to prepare for battle, and then waltzing through the field of combat as though I’d planned the whole thing in advance. Spoiler alert: I didn’t and rarely ever do.

So I think it’s funny. While everyone else would be getting a good nights rest after the obligatory “talk to everyone” chapter, I probably would be sitting in my room staring at the ceiling contemplating bacon and why it’s so utterly wonderful. I’d then probably slump into our shuttle and everyone else would be like “Yeesh, you look like crap!” and I’d be like “Coffee…beef sticks…” and then we’d go fight ultimate evil and kick it in the craw 😀

I think a lot of us tend to function better under fire. Not all of us, but a lot of us. I think it’s also true that a lot of us are better at dealing with other people’s problems than our own. The solution is always so much simpler when it’s not our own heart that we’re trying to change.

Something else that I think about with the heroes busting out their true power near death is the idea of God’s last minute rescues. If I’ve learned nothing else in my relatively short time on this Earth, it’s that God is a really, really big fan of His last minute rescues. I used to think of it more in regards to my own life, how things would always wait until their absolute bleakest before something amazing would happen, but then I really thought about the stories I hear about other saints around the world as well as the Bible itself.

We very rarely ever read about a situation that looks like maybe it’s gonna go south and then God’s like “Oh no, it’s cool, it’s already done”, at least not in the way we see it. For every situation God is already going “I already saved you”, but of course he’s already lightyears beyond the endgame while we’re still mucking about at the start. An example for instance could be Moses and the Israelites. The endgame and their salvation was already set, but that salvation didn’t come at the beginning. Moses and company went through a great period of tribulation before God delivered them, though their salvation was already at hand. Every step of the way even as they suffered, God comforted them and ultimately led them out to freedom. Even after they forsook Him and spat upon His name, He still saw fit to protect them, to deliver them, and to bless them again and again.

When we endure tribulation and feel there is no way out, that is when we call upon God’s divine power the most to save us. We don’t ever truly get our praise on until we feel like we’ve hit the impossible. Many of us wait to exhaust all of our human options before we call out for God’s supernatural one. When we hit that point that is the lowest of the low and we cry out to our Father to save us, none can say any other than God stepped in to protect and deliver them. We seem to only truly find the time to give fierce glory and praise in our darkest hours, and we suffer spiritual amnesia when things are going good.

The endgame, the ending is not always the one that we want, but it is always the one that we need. Speaking from experience, I went through quite a devastating loss some two years ago (was it two? That’s a clear sign God delivered me as any other; I think about it so rarely I can’t even find the time to be aware of when it happened or how long it’s been :D), and I crashed something awful. I was in so much pain, and I never thought I’d be happy again. Every day I cried out to God to step in and fix things, and in my eyes he never did. The situation didn’t change, it just got worse and worse and worse and worse and worse. The harder that I tried to effect positive change in the situation, the more hurt I became while the other party continued on footloose and fancy free.

I was so angry with God. I hated Him. I truly did. I thought to myself “I have done everything that you have ever asked of me! I have not been a flawless servant; no one is, but I HAVE DONE ALL THAT YOU ASKED OF ME! SO WHY? WHY WON’T YOU FIX THIS?! WHY WON’T YOU MAKE THIS BETTER?! WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!?!?!?! WHAT MORE CAN I GIVE?!?!?!?! …what more can I lose?”

Why didn’t He step in? What was wrong with the situation? Why didn’t I get the outcome that I begged for? Simple: it wasn’t in His will. Why did I hurt? Because I was the one blocking my own blessing.

Sometimes what we want with all of our heart isn’t what God wants for us. At the time that can seem impossibly unfair and cruel and unusual and so on and so forth, but, it’s really not. As a child, I wanted to eat nothing but marshmallows and eggs (though not at the same time…often…), but of course my parents wouldn’t allow that. What I wanted wasn’t good for me. They knew better. I’ve learned that God always knows better. Even if I don’t like His plan at the time, it always works out the best in the end.

Ultimately the outcome that I thought I wanted never came to pass. I’m now at a place where I honestly hope it never does. The life and the blessings and the path that God has given me is so much greater than anything I could have possibly imagined; had I gotten what I thought I wanted I sincerely doubt I would have what I know that I do.

Waiting on God isn’t always easy, but we’re far from the last boss fight of our lives. You need any further evidence that you are not the exception but the rule? God waited until His son was dead to rescue him; it doesn’t get any more last minute than that. Yet and still, rescue him He did. In the movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (a movie that does not house ideals I completely agree with, but a beautiful one worth watching nonetheless) there is a line that goes “In India we have a saying. Everything will be alright in the end. If everything is not alright, then it is not yet the end.”

I couldn’t possibly agree with this more. We will constantly be under fire, but God will constantly give us the strength to overcome that fire if only we truly believe and call out to Him to do so. For those that believe, He has already given and deposited within us all the blessings that we will ever need; we need only withdraw from that bank and utilize that power. For those that don’t, well, you can’t possibly expect God to keep bailing you out if you claim not to even believe in Him. He does not abide sin nor does He dwell in it; as Pastor Tony Evans said “God isn’t gonna come in the club to pull you out of it.” If you’re tired of your situation, try something new; try Him.

I was gonna work More Than a Fairytale into this discussion and mention how Xea doesn’t truly grasp the power that’s truly needed until the battle with the Empress forces this change to happen, but, I think that can wait for another time. Hopefully y’all got something out of this; I know I certainly did.

God bless everyone, and to everyone a good night (or morning or afternoon wherever you are).

-Eugene W.
a.ka.
Xeawn