Monday, October 2, 2017

Little Addition

My favorite Magic deck that I'm using right now is my Gideon, Martial Paragon deck, which uses a lot of small creatures that get surprisingly big and powerful. They accomplish this by giving themselves and each other small bonuses that add up to unusually high numbers. In fact, I myself am often surprised by the total amount of power my creatures have after I play a few Honored Crop-Captains or a Trial of Solidarity. Often, just three or four creatures have enough combined power to win the game, all by starting with 2- or 3-power creatures and adding power to each of them 1 or 2 at a time.

Similarly, minor effects in life can add up to having a great effect on us. An individual instance of scripture study or personal prayer may not add much spiritual power on its own, but when it compounds with other, regular instances of prayer, scripture study, and other forms of daily personal worship, these small bonuses can add up to a surprising amount of spiritual power.

Conversely, minor negative effects can add up, too. Individual moments of harboring negative feelings or thoughts may not weaken us much on their own, but over time, weak, negative influences can wear away the strength we gain from weak, positive experiences. If we wish to gain more spiritual power, we should minimize the weakening influences in our lives and maximize the positive ones.

On the day-to-day level, this may not seem to matter too much. After all, all these influences are rather weak, individually. But the good and bad moments in our lives add up surprisingly quickly, and our small, daily habits can end up having a tremendous impact on us. So we should seek out opportunities to take hold on minor spiritual bonuses whenever we can must up the energy to, and we should avoid negative influences whenever we can, even if they're minor. Small numbers can add up quickly, and the weak influences we experience regularly can add up to having a great deal of power.

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