My Struggle with Computer Games
A short time ago I used to play a video game called Spore along with it’s expansion pack Galactic Adventures. This game didn’t seem to be too bad, you just created creatures, buildings, vehicles and put them all together in adventures. It did have violence in it, but this was optional and wasn’t heavy duty, no blood and all that. A few weeks earlier I had made a decision to fully follow the Lord after struggling with temptations via the computer. After I decided to follow the Lord I didn’t engage in the violence of the game so much. After making this decision my life became so much more productive and I was happier and a much better person to be around.
But Satan knew that he could still use this game Spore as a tool to get me ever so slowly back to his side. Originally I didn’t really engage in the violence of the game, but after a while I got back into it more and more. It was having a visible change on me, my life started to get less productive and I was getting consumed in the game. This did concern me, but I didn’t have the power to give it up, and didn’t want to for that matter.
A little while after getting back into more of the game’s violence, every night as I would pray I would get an impression in my head telling me this game is not good and I should not be doing this kind of stuff. It was hard to pray, because I was constantly getting pounded with this impression. I just tried to ignore it, but after a while of this consistently happening I did get a bit worried about it, however I didn’t change anything. I didn’t like prayer too much during this time, because of the constant impression in my head.
After a while of this, Dad got an impression about it. It seems God was trying hard to get me to do what was right. In worship Dad said that we were going to have a discussion. I immediately went “Uh oh, I hope this isn’t about Spore”… and it was. Dad said he was impressed to ask me to give up the game. He said he wanted to offer me a blessing in doing this. When I was starting to think about it, my autistic brother Daniel started screaming, throwing things and causing damage. I knew this was Satan trying to distract us and cause havoc, and this meant I had to act fast. Because of this pressure I was really struggling, I knew what the end result would be, but I just couldn’t utter out those words “Yes”, I was being stopped. I asked Dad to pray for me, which he did. After Dad’s prayer I still couldn’t agree to get rid of the game. So Dad called one of his great friends and prayed with him that I would be given the strength to give it up. After that, I had a very intense battle within myself, it was very hard to blurt out “Yes” but with God’s help I managed to get it out. The battle was over and won, Daniel calmed down and soon returned to his happy mood.
This decision was hard to make, but I’m glad I did. Since then life is opening up, I’m learning many things about web development and other useful trades on the computer. I will probably soon be making websites and get a good income in the future. Praise God for this victory!
