For reasons which are probably obvious given this history-making undertaking the Lord has laid on and in my heart (i.e., my schedule is pretty much booked for the next several years since I’d like to finish memorizing the ENTIRE Bible before, you know, rigor mortis sets in =) I don’t have much time at all to play games but I find that some of them are actually a big POSITIVE in terms not only of fun but time management, i.e., some of them can help keep the human mind sharp and therefore result in increased  productivity, i.e., five minutes of playing that type of game and 55 minutes of work usually results in getting MORE done than just working for all 60 minutes.  I don’t apply that principle to every  hour of the day, but I try to do so every three or four anyway and find that works really well.

I just spent the past few minutes playing one of my favorite such games:  FreeCell.  I don’t know if it’s still the case (haven’t bought a new laptop in nearly two decades) but that game used to come preloaded on virtually all computers so you’re probably very familiar with it but basically you have eight columns of cards (or one can just use numbers of four different colors) and to win you have to move the cards/numbers around so as to “free” up the lowest and up to the highest until there are no more on the board.  The key – and main benefit, main mind-sharpening aspect – is to THINK AHEAD and indeed several  moves ahead, making it very much like Chess in that regard except you’re only playing the board/yourself, not an actual opponent.

Here’s the thing:  it can often LOOK LIKE a move is good but when someone goes to actually make it they unfortunately learn that the move instead ended in getting stuck and thus losing the game.

And that’s EXACTLY how it is in life!

A situation presents itself that seems like a home run.  So you gladly and gleefully swing.

But unfortunately, it often results in a strikeout instead.

I’ve found that this is one reason that the Bible is so important in our day-to-day lives.  It literally “makes wise” and “enlightens the eyes” (Psalm 19:7-8) and thus lights the way and reveals those opportunities which truly are home runs and which ones are strikeouts, pitfalls, just waiting for us to fall in headfirst.

Like my mom used to always say when I was growing up, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”  So true (and/because it’s straight from the Bible, more on this in a future post).  And the Bible does BOTH, prevents and cures as a given situation calls for.  Like the Bible testifies of itself in Psalm 119:105, it is indeed “a lamp to [our] feet and a light to [our] path.”

Thank You, Lord, for being so gracious and generous in giving us such an amazing and effective tool in successfully navigating life:  Your Word, the Bible.  Thank you that, like you – indeed, because it’s from You and by You and of You – it is absolutely perfect and flawless and infallible, so just by “reading and heeding” it we can know in advance which opportunities in life will be strikeouts and which ones will be home runs – a help we desperately need since so often a path which presents itself SEEMS right but is actually wrong, SEEMS good but is actually bad, SEEMS beneficial but is actually detrimental.

• “There is a way which SEEMS right to a man, but its end [i.e., result] is the way of death.” (Proverbs 14:12 & 16:25)

May we AVAIL OURSELVES of that tremendous tool, the Bible, every day, every hour, every minute, every second.
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