Today I took a walk out to the beach...well, out to an overlook very close to the beach. There is a trail system near my apartment that goes through wooded dunes. As I was hiking in the woods I found a section with signs that said "Private Property". I chose to skim off the trail and walk alongside the not so visible barrier for a while and eventually found a different section of trail. I then hiked for a while in area that I have been on and came to the overlook.
Life has a lot of times like this. Sometimes the journey doesn't take us where we want or expect to go. That is the case for me. Other times we get sidetracked and have different side quests. Another place we see these quests is in video games, particularly in RPGs. I remember when my neighbor and I would play Final Fantasy 7 during our middle school or high school days. I don't ever remember all the sidequests but I remember a lot happening and the amazing length of the game. I had not done a whole lot with RPGs so this was new and strange to me, but cool and fun as well. Sometimes you would do a quest to get a better weapon or to level up. Other times you just walk around looking for battles to learn about your new weapon or your new team-mate.
Right now my family is in a side-quest situation. After a fire in our house we are living in an apartment complex which is very new to us until our new house is built. I call this a side-quest because it is a temporary thing for us.
David, before becoming King, had some side-quests. He was living in Philistine territory for a while because of King Saul's threats against him. During this time he had to figure out how to survive and convince the Philistines to let him hide among them. He did this by doing raids, but he never let Achish (king of the Philistines) know the truth of where he was raiding. I doubt that this is where he ever wanted to be. As much of a warrior as David was, I don't know if he enjoyed raiding towns and killing the inhabitants. You can read about his time there in 1 Samuel 27-30.
But this time did a few things. He prepared the area for Israel to expand its territory, something that happened under his leadership after he became King of Israel. God often uses these side-quests to prepare us for stuff. They might start with painful events such as our fire or they might be an adventure planned for in advance, such as a short term mission trip.
So tell us, on the Facebook page or here on Blogspot, what side-quests have you been on and how were you trained and prepared for other things through them?
Life has a lot of times like this. Sometimes the journey doesn't take us where we want or expect to go. That is the case for me. Other times we get sidetracked and have different side quests. Another place we see these quests is in video games, particularly in RPGs. I remember when my neighbor and I would play Final Fantasy 7 during our middle school or high school days. I don't ever remember all the sidequests but I remember a lot happening and the amazing length of the game. I had not done a whole lot with RPGs so this was new and strange to me, but cool and fun as well. Sometimes you would do a quest to get a better weapon or to level up. Other times you just walk around looking for battles to learn about your new weapon or your new team-mate.
Right now my family is in a side-quest situation. After a fire in our house we are living in an apartment complex which is very new to us until our new house is built. I call this a side-quest because it is a temporary thing for us.
David, before becoming King, had some side-quests. He was living in Philistine territory for a while because of King Saul's threats against him. During this time he had to figure out how to survive and convince the Philistines to let him hide among them. He did this by doing raids, but he never let Achish (king of the Philistines) know the truth of where he was raiding. I doubt that this is where he ever wanted to be. As much of a warrior as David was, I don't know if he enjoyed raiding towns and killing the inhabitants. You can read about his time there in 1 Samuel 27-30.
But this time did a few things. He prepared the area for Israel to expand its territory, something that happened under his leadership after he became King of Israel. God often uses these side-quests to prepare us for stuff. They might start with painful events such as our fire or they might be an adventure planned for in advance, such as a short term mission trip.
So tell us, on the Facebook page or here on Blogspot, what side-quests have you been on and how were you trained and prepared for other things through them?
Good thoughts. God is the Master Designer weaving all the plot lines together. Something we thought was unrelated has tremendous significance for another situation we knew nothing about.
ReplyDeleteYep. And then we try to build our own subplots and that doesn't always work.
Delete