I’m addicted.
Ever since I was introduced a few days ago, I couldn’t wait for my next fix…in 30-minute increments.
Yes, I’m addicted to the Candy Crush Saga.
I’m a grown man. This is a game with silly cartoons and ridiculous candy icons. It’s a modern-day candy land. It’s something kids play online and solicit lives from their friends on Facebook. And now I’m part of it.
I blame my mother-in-law. She just HAD to show me what Candy Crush was all about. I had no interest in playing the latest and greatest game. I was completely content with the few Words With Friends games I was involved in. I didn’t have room in my life for Candy Crush. Just the name turned me off. It sounded like something you played while you waited to see if the girl in homeroom texts you back. It seems like something you play while listening to Taylor Swift or Ke$ha (or as I call her, K-dollar sign-ha). I would not give in.
I gave in. And I took my wife with me. (Sorry, baby. We’re going down together.)
Me: Are you going to connect with Facebook?
Wife who is not going to like that I’m posting this: No way, I don’t want people to know I play this thing.
Me: Me neither.
Well, I guess we should connect now.
Today I had to fly out of town for the week to work from Fort Walton Beach, FL. My flight out of Daytona Beach was delayed, which meant that I had a meager few minutes to teleport through ATL. Of course, I had to change concourses. Of course when I got to my gate there was a flight going to Jacksonville, FL. Of course when I asked where my flight went (though I got there slightly before the doors were supposed to close), no one knew where it was. Luckily, I was booked on the next flight about 90 minutes later.
What’s worse than having to sit and sweat in the Atlanta airport after missing your flight? Doing it without any Candy Crush lives left. If you haven’t (yet) jumped on the Candy Crush bandwagon, when you fail a level enough times, you eventually run out of lives. The makers of the game must have found that 30 minutes is an appropriate amount of time to stew on your frustration because you didn’t “clear all the jellies.” (Seriously, how stupid does that sound?). Once all your lives are out, a timer starts and after 30 minutes you start accumulating lives again. Oh, how painstaking it is to wait for your next life to regenerate. Or, you could just buy some. I read that this game makes over $600,000 per day from people with no restraint.
This game is interesting. You fail and fail and fail and eventually just sit back and wait/buy/beg others for a new life to be given to you so you have hope of moving to the next level. That sounds a lot like life, dontcha think? We face adversity, we struggle to pay bills, we toil on work projects, we tussle with home improvement projects or we get lost in our own sin. We end up getting let down, beat up and knocked back. At least, I do.
Years ago, when I got sick of my ways and fed up with the sin in my life, I sought after God and pleaded that he give me new life. Of course, he did. Romans 6:4 says, “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”
I received that new life. A guaranteed, spoken for and undeserved eternal life. But, that doesn’t mean that the day-to-day gets easier. Recently, I’ve encountered challenge after challenge. Whenever I feel like I’ve moved past one level, the next has something completely different in store for me. To compare it to Candy Crush, it’s like moving past the jelly and having licorice wrapped candies instead (wow, I’ve never used a more lame metaphor.)
Anyway, the point is this: I’ve been stuck in a valley and I want out. I have to rely on God, the giver of life, instead of myself. There’s a lot of things that God wants me to do. I truly believe that. He’s given me vision, passion and desire. But, the waiting is painstaking.
The Pressing On 