My son often teases me about the computer games I play. My wife occasionally digs at me, too. For instance this past Christmas they bought me "Halo" and "Rise of Nations", both extremely popular games. So far Dave has played Halo all the way through, and RON hasn't even been out of the box yet. I keep assuring them that I will get around to playing the games sooner or later, but they usually just shake their collective heads and wonder why they bothered.

The thing is, my favorite games tend to be ones that are ASCII based. That means text, the same kind of text that you see here in the bulletin. Even that box around the "Reminders" section is just ASCII characters, or at least they can be rendered that way. As I mentioned once before, my all time hands down favorite game is "Hack" which is dated from around 1970-something. My second favorite is not "Serious Sam", as Kieran would guess, but a game called "Battle for Atlantis" which is very much like Risk. I like games that I can sit down and play I 0 minutes here, I 0 minutes there. When I play Serious Sam, well, I invest a serious amount of time blasting away at things, which means I simply don't always have time for it.

Battle for Atlantis, though, pits you against three computer generated opponents who must struggle against each other as well as against you. How aggressive they appear depends on what level of play you choose. Level I means they think you are a sissy and worry about each other the most, leaving you free to easily crush them unexpectedly and win, even if you are the most terrible Risk player in the world. Level 10, however, they see even one country held by you as a threat and seek to annihilate you without mercy. I rarely choose a level, though - your choices are 1-10 and a ?, which means pick one at random. This means sometimes the game lasts 5 minutes (level 1 ish) or 15 minutes (level 9 ish) but you never really know until the game starts. If the game started and I realized they were all over. me (level 10 was picked) I quit.

That's right, I was a quitter. I only wanted to play when I had a good chance to win. So in short, I would tell the computer to pick some random occurrence for me and I would take what I got, but if it seemed too hard I just quit and had it pick again. Loser!

It occurred to me that, sadly, this is often the approach I have taken to teaching others anything about the gospel. If I thought they were "friendly" to the listening, I would timidly offer some insight, a bible quote, and invite them to a meeting or offer a bible study. If they seemed more on the defensive, I might just quote a passage or make some biblical comparison. But when I found someone who was downright anti-bible, I would just keep my mouth closed. In other words, I was a quitter. If there was no way I could see to win, if the odds were against me, I would rather not make the effort.

And speaking of effort, I can recall times in the past where as a younger fellow I would avoid bible studies because I was always in a hurry and unwilling to invest the time. I would sneak in a study here or there, rather than commit myself long term. Like my video games, I wanted it to be on my schedule.

However, a while ago I started playing those harder level 10 games. After all the practice from lesser levels, I discovered I could indeed beat the game if I just showed patience, endurance, and a true desire to win. Sure, I had to be less aggressive and willing to be satisfied with smaller victories, but in the end I found I could beat the game on any level that came up, with greater satisfaction. No, we're not going to convert every person we ever teach, but one day when we find ourselves hearing "well done, good and faithful servant", we've won! We can't win at all, though, if we don't try.

Randy