342 – Old School is Sometimes the Best School

#faithbites #faithjourney School

Today was my eldest’s birthday.  She wanted a Wreck-It-Ralph themed party, so where else should we hold it but at a retro arcade. This place had all the old video games that we grew up on and cost $0.25 to $0.50 a game. This reminded me of growing up and the fun I had. 

What was special about this was seeing kids and parents playing together. No phones, no distractions. Just great fellowship around some games that were over 30 years old.  The second thing that was awesome is no one complained about the selection of games, the difficulty or anything. Everyone just had fun with it. 

Retro or old school can be used to relive memories and create new ones. Faith is like that. We have the word of God that is between 2000 and 5000 years old. While we may interpret differently, his message still resonates today.

Scripture

• Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. – Hebrews 13:8
• The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. – Isaiah  40:8
• The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations. – Psalm 33:11

Reflection

So many things change in our lives. The games we play get more and more complicated and harder to learn. Some change completely. I love the Fallout Series of games but from Fallout 2 to 3 it changed to a first person game and from 4 to 76 it became fully online multiplayer. It’s not the same experience as it was before. I prefer the old school.

In faith, God never changes. People change and how we think of him changes, but he doesn’t. 

Our lives are filled with so many new shiny sparkly things. But God and Jesus are old school. They love us yesterday, today, and tomorrow. They don’t need to be updated or changed. We don’t need Buddy Christ from Dogma to bring people around. 

We need to embrace his Word and love our neighbors. That is how we keep it real.

Charge

Do you like to kick it old school or new school? In your faith are you looking for something shiny and new or something that has always been there? I know how we understand God changes, but who he is does not. Look to his word always and it will lead you on his path.

Lord, help me to always stay true to your word. Give me the strength to avoid the devil’s temptations toward something that is shiny and new but is not your path.