I love video game cheat codes. I used to play Sim City and one of my favorite cheat codes was “Call Cousin Vinnie” which would give you like $100k free and clear. Another one was “I am weak” which made most items free to build. Between the two codes, I could build up a city and not worry about money. (well operating costs would still come up, but it would take a long time before they ate through all my accumulated money, but by then I was pretty bored and would move on to something else. I probably have a bright future in Congress.)
I really only liked to build things in Sim City, all the other aspects of the game (which made it a game) didn’t appeal to me much, so I’d use cheat codes to avoid it as much as possible.
Isn’t it true that if we had cheat codes in real life, we’d use them? I know I would, in about twenty seconds. I’d “call cousin Vinnie” and load up my bank account with a bunch of cash, I’d admit that I was weak and get a bunch of stuff for free, and try to find the fast forward button through every hard and difficult thing in life.
I’d skip over those times I said something stupid and hurt a friend. I’d skip past all those funerals and deaths of people I love. I’d skip over those times when really good friends came up to me and told me hard things I didn’t want to hear.
I’d skip over dating and courting and flirting and all that stuff right to the wedding day. (or really the wedding night… :-) And I imagine I’d skip over diapers and terrible twos right to when kids are at that really fun age. (then skip over the whole mess of teenage years)
I’d skip over the hard parts of ministry, and go right for those really good moments. I’d skip the mountain climb, right to standing on the summit.
Some people love to play their video games on legendary mode. The other day I tried to play a Halo level on legendary and died like twenty times before I finally made it to the first check point. But when I play with a friend? We’ll team up and make it all the way through. We’ll go through hard fights at different times. We have each others’ backs. Halo is better that way.
And so is life. Life is set to legendary mode for all of us. If we do it alone, we’ll find it messy, frustrating and maybe not worth pursuing.
But with good friends? They’ll have your back and you’ll have theirs. Life will still be hard, but you’ll make it.