(Writer’s note: Due to a connection problem, I had to wait til this morning to put this blog up. Let’s hope tonight things are normal.)
In Final Fantasy VI, the world enters a time of ruin and the party of do-gooders is split up. One girl in the party awakens and she is guided along as she finds everyone else including a man named Setzer who is in a state of dejection after seeing the world and wants to give up. The girl, Celes, tells him though that before the world entered ruin, he was the strongest fighter there was and nothing stood in his way and he faced death head on. He doesn’t like the way the world is? Then do something about it! With those words, Setzer gets back his strength and joins the party who ends up doing just what Celes said. They save the world.
In Final Fantasy X, the party is fighting to gain a power to defeat evil, but then they find that the idea of defeating the evil for good is a myth. They refuse to give up which means that they have to fight past the one they thought would help them the most. The hero Auron gives this speech then:
“Now! This is it! Now is the time to choose!
Die and be free of pain or live and fight your sorrow!
Now is the time to shape your stories!
Your fate is in your hands!”
I love that speech. Why? Auron knows the truth. You have great sorrow now and you can die and be free from it. Or, you can choose to live and fight it. Your stories are being shaped and how they will turn out at this point is up to you. Are you going to be the hero of the story or the victim? Are you going to conquer the world or let it conquer you?
I suppose this is one reason I love games so much like this. They have the people changing the world and you’ll rarely find that it is the super types that do such. It is usually in the Final Fantasy series ordinary people. If they have any powers, they usually wrestle with great doubt or other internal difficulties. For instance, Tidus, the hero of FFX, is a champ at the popular sport in the game of Blitzball, but constantly hears his domineering father saying “You can’t do it!” and criticizing him in his mind.
What’s the point? Each of these characters does make a difference. Yesterday, I wrote about changing the world. The truth is that we all change the world every day. We all change everyone’s world we meet (And in many ways, everyone else through who they meet) and we all change our world everyday. We are becoming more like Christ and enabling others to do so, or becoming less like him and hindering them from doing so, and that should make many of us pause to think. It certainly makes me pause.
The question is not will we make a difference. The question is “What kind of difference will we make?” When we leave this world, we would have left it for the better or for the worse. Some of us will be like Setzer at the start and say “I can’t make a difference. It’s a lost cause.” For that, we need people like Celes and Auron.
Yes. We need people who will be honest. It’s not a lost cause. It’s a dangerous cause and it’s a tough cause and the battle won’t be easy, but the battle can be won because it has been won. We can take this fight anywhere. If we believe the gospel, we should believe that we can take it anywhere and it will make a difference.
If only we had adventurers like Paul, and let’s be clear, Paul was an adventurer. I am convinced that if we really had a video game based on a character playing as Paul and having to face the dangers he faced, it would be a best-seller. Paul’s life was filled with danger. Why’d he do it? Because he believed the gospel could change the world. Look at his letter to the Romans. He wants to carry the gospel to the far ends of the Earth. Spain was no simple task. This was a man who was staying around the Jerusalem area to deal with the “Christian threat.” Now he wants to travel the world.
These people do exist. You can find many of my type known as apologists who are going out into every area out there and making a difference because they believe the gospel is true and can change lives. They may go to other countries where Christianity is not warmly received or to university settings where secularism reigns or on the internet in the midst of the common man or to some other places of dreadful opposition, like family and work. (For any concerned, I do have a Christian family but for those who don’t, these can be the hardest people to talk to.)
Why should we go though? Because the gospel is true. We can live our lives in confidence of the message of Christ. The more we believe it, the more we will live it and tell others that we believe it. When we do that, imagine the difference that we can make. How can Christ make a difference in the world though if we never go forth with the good news?
Friends. We’re making a difference right now. We all are. Wouldn’t it be great if at the same time, we were making one for Christ?
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