Virtual village

I found a game on my computer last weekend that had been installed a couple of years ago when I purchased my computer.  It is something about a virtual village.  I had a little free time, so I opened it up to see what it was about.  It started out with seven villagers on a deserted beach.  They needed to "learn" how to take care of themselves, so I had to "teach" them, by moving them around the village and placing them in certain strategic locations at certain times.  I played around with it for about an hour, and then I turned it off and went about my day.

Yesterday, I opened it up again, and I found that the game continued on while it was off.  All but one of my virtual villagers was dead!  Their skeletons were strewn across the virtual beach!  I felt bad momentarily.  Then I really felt bad about opening up a game that would have required me to waste countless hours in front of a computer screen, trying to keep virtual people "alive"!

This made me think about God.  How often do we think of him as someone "out there" just toying with us, and then absently walking away, leaving us to "die" in our ignorance, when he should be teaching us something.  So many people I know think of God like that.  Like he just set the world in motion and then stepped back to watch us mess it all up.

What a thought!  This season, however, we are reminded of how close to humanity that he really is.  That he not only participates in our day to day lives, but he even sent his son to become one of us, to live like us, and to offer his life in exchange for ours!

To put it in perspective, it would be like my going into my virtual village to show the virtual people how to be real people, then becoming a game so that they could be really alive! The concept blows my mind!