Monday, February 20, 2017

Easy XP

In many roleplaying games, characters earn XP mainly by defeating monsters. The tougher the monsters the characters defeat, the more XP they earn, and that XP helps them to "level up" and become stronger. It's like exercising. Generally speaking, the heavier the weights a person lifts, the more strength they gain from lifting that weight. However, in some games, it's possible to gain a significant amount of XP for surprisingly little effort. For example, I know of one D&D adventure module in which a group of characters can "earn" a fair chunk of XP by merely opening a door and staying out of the way of the creature that passes through that door.

Life isn't that easy. In life, gaining experience takes real effort. If we want to get stronger in real life, we need to face real challenges. This is true with spiritual strength as well as physical strength. There is no easy way to gain the strength to resist temptation and choose the right. We can and should pray for such strength, and God will help us develop it, but the process will still take a good deal of effort on our part. There is no "easy XP" in the gospel.

A D&D character may gain easy XP by exploiting cheap tricks, but we won't get off so easily. If we want to gain spiritual experience and spiritual strength, we have to truly earn it.

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