After I had been playing Minecraft for a while, I decided I could use a break. I had done just about everything I could do in the game and had started to get burned out on it. Thankfully, I had an opportunity to join a server and play with others who enjoyed Minecraft as much as I did. This opened the game up to a whole new adventure. Instead of just me, there were others playing in the same world. Working together we were able to build bigger and better things.
After a while, something happened there that made me think a lot about real life. Somehow, weird things started happening to our world. Things were disappearing and new terrain was showing up in places it wasn’t supposed to be. As a group we decided to roll back the server a day or two. This would make all of this bad stuff go away, but would also make us lose anything we had done in the last 24 hours or so. Buildings that had been built would be gone as well as resources that had been collected.
So, how does that make me think of real life? As we talked about the pros and cons of rolling the server back I couldn’t help but think about what it would be like if we could roll our lives back a day or two.
Rolling It Back
Can you imagine if on the worst day of your life you could hit a reset button and start over again? What if when you failed a test you could retake it as if it had never happened? I would have love to have been able to rewind the day the lady talking on her cell phone pulled out in front of me. It would be absolutely amazing if we could do that. Or would it?
When we rolled back the server it meant a lot of progress was lost as well. The bad stuff was only happening in a few areas of the map, but rolling back affected everyone. If I could have rolled back to before the lady pulled in front of me, how would that have affected someone else’s life? How would it have changed my own future?
Do you remember David? The one who killed Goliath with just a small stone. The same guy who is called a man after God’s own heart? Do you remember a time when he might have wanted to roll back the clock in his life? 2 Samuel 11 tells of David, Bathsheba, and Uriah. In the end, David has taken Bathsheba, gotten her pregnant, and had Uriah killed in an attempt to cover everything up. Many of us would say If I could go back and do it over… David didn’t say that. After reading 2 Samuel 11 and 12, go read Psalm 51. In David’s prayer to God he doesn’t wish to “roll back the server” and relive that time. He acknowledges his sin and deals with it accordingly. He says in verse 3 “For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.” There is no going back for David.
What if David could have “rolled back the server” of his life? Would anything major have changed? Look a little further into 2nd Samuel 12 and you will see another familiar name. Solomon. And who is Solomon’s mother? Bathsheba.
I am not sure when or why we began to desire to be able to go back in time and erase bad things. Am I happy or excited about the bad things that have happened in my life? Not really. But as I look back to those dark days in my life, I realize that I would not be where I am today if it had not been for them. Go and read James 1:2 (I won’t tell you what it says. Go look it up!) After you get over your disbelief that you are supposed to find joy in struggles, read V. 3 and you will understand why. Struggles help us to grow. End of story.
The Final Block
This is not an excuse to sow our wild oats and chalk it up to growth. And it doesn’t make those dark days easier when we are going through them. If I could choose whether tomorrow would be good or bad, I would choose good every day. Unfortunately, we can’t. We have bad days. We get bad news. Bad things happen to us and to those we love dearly. It means that when we are faced with a struggle, we don’t have the choice to roll back the server and live as though it never happened. We press on. We fight. We “count it all joy.”
Questions:
- Have you ever had a day that you wish you could “roll back” and do it over?
- How do you think David was able to overcome the challenges he faced?
- Read James 1:2-3 and think about how you can make bad days become good ones.
[Image via YouTube]
Douglas Porter says
Will there be more or is #10 the last one? Thanks!