Debuffs

Many games include buffs and debuffs that can make the challenge level a little easier, or a little or a lot harder. Designers will scale buffs and debuffs to bend the game without breaking it. Most are temporary, or can be removed or reversed one way or another to bring the game back into its original balance.

Real life is not balanced, or fair. Real life hurts. Real life can somehow be both scarier and more boring than you ever want to experience. And the debuffs of real life frequently just suck. If I got you a subscription to a game that was too much like real life, I doubt you’d want to play it!

Looking at what the Bible says about real-life debuffs–or what the Bible calls affliction–I’m really relieved it’s not some pat answer that life is somehow fair, or not as hard as it seems.

Not everything in the Bible is ‘what the Bible says.’ Satan is quoted in the Bible, recommending quick fixes and immediate gratification–turn these stones into bread! Job’s crummy religious friends are also quoted, implying that Job just wasn’t living right. But that’s not ‘what the Bible says,’ really.

What the Bible says about affliction sounds more like this:

For [the LORD] hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; Neither hath he hid his face from him; But when he cried unto him, he heard. (Psalm 22:24)

See how non-religious the LORD can be?

• He doesn’t despise affliction, saying it’s no big deal, blaming or shaming the afflicted person, telling them to just rub some dirt on it.
• He doesn’t abhor affliction, being grossed out, backing away and treating the afflicted person like they have cooties.
• He doesn’t hide his face, avoiding eye contact and depersonalizing the afflicted person as “them, not us.”
• He hears the cry of the afflicted person. When they call, the LORD picks up and doesn’t just let it go to voice mail.

People will do all those things to you when you’re afflicted, and feel just fine about themselves. If you’re at a disadvantage, or maybe just different from them, people can be ungenerous and just plain mean. But the LORD is something else.

If you’re a Bible nerd, you know that Psalm 22 is the psalm Jesus started to quote from the cross. He made it his prayer:

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? (Psalm 22:1)

This Psalm starts out with the absolute honesty that real life includes situations where we literally feel godforsaken, like God has rejected us or let us down. And we ask, why? If Jesus felt that way, and he was (to put it mildly) a believer, it may not be realistic for me to expect that as a believer, I will never feel that way.

Sometimes I will feel like my problems are just too much, like God should never let life get this hard, like I should never be this clueless about what to do next. This game is broken!

But it’s not a game. And without despising, without abhorring, without hiding his face, the LORD is listening.

Watch the corresponding video here.