Gaming: Some Old Folks Just Don't Get It

This probably started back in high school. For instance, I used to play Call of Duty. Every time I play the damn game, my mom is always asking if I finished my homework. I finished my homework. I need some time to blow off steam and take a break. They tell me I can't play and go review some more. It is the weekend and there is nothing else to do so I try to play again. Again my parents deny my request to play some video games. There are always more and more excuses as to why I cannot play.

Some odd years later and here I am, summer of 2013, a college student. Bored at night after a hard day's work. I play some League of Legends and sure enough, my mom barges into my room telling me to go to sleep and saying really nasty things. She says my dad is unhappy. Sometimes my dad complains and says I'm being too loud. My parents constantly bother me when I play league at night. Well based on my observations about 80% of my league buddies play between the hours of 10 pm -3 am. My room is in the basement so typically I'm not disturbing anyone. However they choose not to sleep in their bedroom which is on the second floor and come to the basement. Given that my only room in the house is in the basement, it is rather impossible for me to be anymore quiet. I LIVE IN THEIR HOUSE. IM 21 and should have been kicked out. I guess it's their kindness that they let me live with them still. After all I'm just another useless person in society with Muscular dystrophy and have no bright future at all... But why sleep in the basement when your master bedroom is on the second floor? Why come down when you know your son is a 21 year old male and therefore almost certainly going to be blasting music or gaming at night, among other unmentionable activities?!

And they keep telling me staying up late is bad for me and it is slow suicide and that I'm going to die an early death blah blah blah..... until God puts me in the dirt, I aint dying. i mean we die eventually anyway. So I tell my mom just after this game i will go to sleep. She talks for another 10 minutes telling me really mean things. Not only does this distracts me from my game which requires lots of focus and teamwork, it makes me extremely irate because this is like the 1000th time she's done this to me. And then it makes me very unhappy. My good day has been ruined. Thanks Mom. You are quite good at ruining my mood before I get a good night's rest.

So why the need to threaten to kick me out of the house? The threat to make me pay for my tuition on my own? Just because I played some League of Legends with my close friends around midnight? What have I ever done wrong to deserve this kind of treatment? I know I have certain health issues and that my step dad recently got cancer. I know they are trying to watch out for me but who knows their health better than themselves? I certainly don't have a gaming addiction. Its summer time so there really is nothing to study for. I have a summer job in which I still get up for and arrive 30 minutes early. Is sleeping around midnight or 1 or 2 am really that bad for one's health? Am I really throwing my life away? Are humans not able to adapt to the times and situation? My parents keep thinking I'm so fragile at sleeping 1 hour later or less is going to kill me at any moment. And then more excuses come flooding in... but look at it this way: How many college students are there in the United States? Now how many of them play video games? More specifically around midnight....how many more are around my age? How many sleeps around 12 am - 1 am.... and wake up around 8:30? Are all of those people going to get some kind of incurable disease in the future and die an early death? My parents keep telling me its slow suicide and keep telling me "studies have shown..." Studies my ass. They can't even find a report on the number of college students in American that play League of Legends around midnight who get 7 hours of sleep or less. Their excuses aren't exactly compelling given all of the statistics they can't prove.

They way I see it, perhaps my parents think gaming is some kind of evil, some kind of vice so deadly it might kill them if they tired just a bit of it. On top of that, my parents are straight from the mainland (China), immigrants but well educated. Their background was rough and "games" probably never existed during their childhood. I understand that but why must they take away our happiness? Do they not understand this is the 21st century? 90's children were practically born with video games as a part of our mass consumer culture. Many games are now considered national sports and people actually make a living from them. I'm just trying to play causally as a means to connect with my friends that I cant always be with. I'm trying to build bonds with peers that weren't as strong before because we've had no similar interests and finally we found something we all have a common interest in. So many positives can come from gaming when you have your priorities in place but my parents remain stubbornly blind to that fact. 

I go to work and church when I'm supposed to, I read the Bible at night, I try my best to be a decent person and just live a normal quite life but my parents always find something at fault with me. If it's not sleeping too late it's that I'm wasting my life on games. 

I guess God really is testing my patience too. I try really hard not to be a bad son, and not to disrespect my parents behind their backs but I get extremely angry when they disturb me during a gaming session for no good reason other than to tell me I need to go to bed. I just hope my parents understand one day that I'll be okay with 6-7 hours of sleep during the summer days.

Service

Service. This word can have multiple definitions depending on the context. As a noun, service is the action of  doing work for someone or helping them. As a verb it can mean performing and routine check, or maintenance on something. But as Christians what should service mean to us?

Service should encompass both of these definitions as well as carrying out God's Ideals. That means we should serve the Church community as well as the local community. It means we should hold food drives, fundraisers, community outreach programs and the likes. We should be spreading the good news  of the Gospel not just by preaching what is written in the Word, but we should also be physically serving the community.

There are so many ways to serve. But as Christians, often times we do not serve enough, nor can we ever serve enough. Why is that? We tend to think that there will always be people who are willing to serve the community so those roles have been covered. But the truth is, there aren't as many people serving the community as we think there are. In fact, there are not enough people serving.

And then when faced with the question as to why some Christians do not serve enough, the excuses come flooding through. People claim to be too busy with work. They are too tired, they have no time...blah blah blah. What can be so serious that one cannot take one hour a week at the very least to serve? What can be so important that it takes more priority than serving God's people and delivering the good news? Our religion is not based on good works that gets us to heaven, it is by grace. But this is no excuse to not serve. John 13:12-14 says:"When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet." Jesus served his disciples by washing their feet. He set an example that we should all follow. This is not in the literal sense that we should also wash other people's feet, but that we should also do everything we can in our power to serve.

There is also the excuse that some people will not be recognized for their hard work or effort. for that excuse, Colossians 3:23-24 says : "Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ".

Sometimes I get the feeling that non-Christians really don't like us. They think we are some Jesus loving freaks and that we serve for ulterior motives. They think that once they attend some even hosted by the Church that they will be forced into Christianity. I really feel sorry for those people. We are children of the Lord, and by that definition, it is our nature to serve. God loves us and we should love each other. Jesus served us and we should serve others. His ultimate service to us was dying for us on the cross. He saved us from damnation and gave his life for us. That is the ultimate price Jesus paid for service. And here we are complaining about being too tired to served and that we can't even give up an hour of our time.

On an closing note, we do not want to convert people by service because that not what service is about. Service is one way that we as Christians spread the good news of the Gospel.  We serve because we love. And that should be our motto.