I am not afraid to admit it. God has been speaking to me through Zelda. No, not really. The voice in the newest version of the game is from someone else, an enchanting voice that emerges at the very beginning and will be with you the whole time. But, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me start over, at the beginning.
Like all true spiritual journeys, this one begins with an awakening.
A shimmering light appears before your eyes, and you hear someone imploring you: "Open your eyes!" You have been asleep for a very long time, longer than you can imagine, longer than you dare consider. And as you emerge, you learn a few things very quickly.
One, you are very much a novice. You are just beginning. You do not have much, only a few necessities. But that is okay, for you are also being given a gift - a type of guiding presence and map.
Two, there is a dire mission before. A grave calamity has befallen the world, and you will have a part to play in bringing light back into the world.
Three (and this part is very important), there is someone who believes in you. And that same someone is waiting for you.
...
Yes, it's just a video game, but Zelda is tapping into something that is elemental to all of us and all of life: a quest. A journey. And this is where God has been speaking to me.
Because we are all made for the journey.
We can forget that. Over time we too can fall asleep ... yes, even us "Christians." In the beginning, we are thirsty for the adventure. We want to walk with Jesus. But, if we are not careful, through the years, we will step off the path. We will settle for something less.
Most of the time, what we end up settling for is just "going to church." We do it because we have some faint memory of the journey, but if we're honest there isn't much aliveness in it. So we tell ourselves what is needed is more commitment. We'll serve on a committee or step up into leadership, but that rarely solves the problem. We are still aching for the adventure.
Or ...
We find ourselves entering deeply into the middle part of our life. The journey sounded exciting but that was before kids and bed-time routines and heaps of laundry lying in the bathroom and another meal to make tonight. That was before annual reviews at work and interpersonal conflicts with our boss. Life is just happening to us most of the time, and if we are lucky there may be some time at the end of the day to taste a bit of the adventure in an episode of This Is Us or another rerun of The Office.
...
There was once a man who had fallen asleep spiritually himself. Outwardly, his life looked like a success. He had a good career and by most standards he was well off.
The only problem was that internally he felt asleep.
Then, something miraculously happened. Actually, someone happened. He heard a voice. He heard someone telling him to open his eyes.
That man was St. Ignatius of Loyola and the voice he heard was from his Savior, the Lord Jesus. And from that point on, he realized that his life was meant to be a quest. He would be given a gift to guide him. There was a purpose for his existence. And, most importantly, there was someone who believed in him.
As he came alive, Ignatius knew he couldn't keep this experience to himself. So, he did something about it. He came up with an adventure, a quest, to present to others. He called them his exercises, and for the next ten weeks on Wednesday nights, my hope is to give us the chance to go on this adventure together.
Ten Wednesdays. Ten steps of the journey. Ten opportunities to step in a new direction this year. Ten opportunities to hear the voice again.
"Open your eyes!"
A grand adventure awaits you. The grandest of them all: the road called discipleship. The path called living as a Christian.
~Pastor Wes
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