Ravagers and Repentance

Found on marvelcinematicuniverse.wikia.com.

Ravagers. We don't always think good things when we hear this word. Certainly, the Ravagers in the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) are not seen in a good light by very many. They steal, kill, and make comments about eating people (or at least Yondu does). They are all about living on the move, making money in immoral missions, and drinking alcohol.

But at one point, they did something...good. They formed an alliance with the team that would come to be known as the Guardians of the Galaxy and even with the Nova Corp to protect a planet from a terrorist force led by a Kree named Ronan the Accuser.

This is an act we refer to as repentance. Admittedly, this repentance seems short lived as they soon turn their weapons on the Guardians. Repentance is a Greek military term for turning around. Going 180 degrees in the other direction.

John the Baptist taught this in preparation for the coming of Jesus. Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand. Mark 1 tells us that he came "preaching a baptism of repentance". This was all "for the forgiveness of sins".

All of the Guardians showed major growth over the movie. This included fighting for people who would prefer they be thrown in jail, revealing various forms of pain to us, and giving something valuable into the hands of law enforcement.

But repentance shows a preparation for forgiveness. It shows you are willing to change by doing the change, not by making empty words. This is not always fun. It often means fighting our own desires and appetites. I find that it is easy to be mad at myself when I keep falling off the horse. When I find myself failing at something regularly I get frustrated with myself. Don't you?

Let us learn from Batman Begins: "Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves up again."

But what good does this do us? In both John 1 and Mark 1 we learn that John the Baptist was simply preparing the way for Jesus ministry. And that is one of the reasons we repent. To enjoy the presence of God. My only advice for repentance? Keep getting back up. Don't give up because it is hard!

Side-Quests and Preparation

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?