Life is an MMO. Here is a different guide

This isn’t the game guide where I tell you the quickest way to level up in your job. It certainly isn’t a list of cheat codes for finding your dream spouse. If you’re searching for a bonus level with heaps of cash and an impractically large sword, I expect to disappoint you.

Strategies are helpful and specific choices important... but what’s most crucial now is your understanding of what sort of game you are in. Real life is an MMO (massive, multiplayer, online video game), and it’s currently a beta.

Under the second section, I’ll write more about what this MMO universe means for our lives. First, I’d like to explain and elaborate upon real life as a beta.

It’s only a beta (for now)

Beta is the second letter in the Greek alphabet. In this context, it describes an unfinished game - or prototype -  that players have the privilege of testing.

In the game’s unpolished state, there are frustrating bugs (glitches) and missing features. Does that sound familiar to you, reader? If we’re honest, all of us can admit some part of life which seems poorly designed or incomplete. The good news is that our game was not created this way, and it will one day be free of these problems forever.

The Alpha

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

-James 1:13-15 (ESV)

In the alpha (an unfinished version even earlier than the beta, which fewer testers are invited to), God created the heavens and earth (Genesis 1:1). He rendered a whole galaxy-worth of lighting (v. 3-5), painted our skybox in the highest of high definition (6-8, 14-18), designed 196.9 million square miles of diverse land/seascape (9-12), and populated our planet with non-human characters, possessing an unreplicated quality of authentic intelligence (20-25). God saw that each of these features was good, but He did not stop there.

God created in His personal likeness the very first human character, Adam (2:7). However, and as I’ll expound on in the following section, Adam being a lone player was the first aspect of alpha that the Designer deemed not good (v. 18). From Adam’s flesh and that same divine likeness, God created Eve to be Adam’s perfect counterpart (2:21-25; 1:27) God blessed the couple with authority - not only to enjoy creation - but to cultivate its growth, rule over its inhabitants, and produce a multiplying community of human players (1:28; 2:15). Finally, when all this was established, God saw that everything He made was very good (1:31).

Adam and Eve had countless features of the game before them to explore, yet there was one aspect their Designer warned them to avoid: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil... for in contrast to the tree of life, consuming its fruit would cause their deaths (2:9; v.16-17).

Some players look back and call this an unfair design, feeling that God is at fault for placing such a dangerous feature in the midst of the garden. While forbidden things are often made more tempting, Adam and Eve had plenty of reason to trust the word of their Maker, who revealed Himself to them and graciously brought them into the alpha.

Ultimately, it was not spontaneous hunger that caused humanity’s fall, but a lack of faith. Eve believed the serpent, Satan, that God lied about the tree to hide a “godmode” cheat of sorts (3:5). Adam, who was likely present for the conversation and was originally commanded not to eat from the tree (2:16-17), failed to speak against the deception and disobediently ate the fruit also (3:6). Consequently, the glitch of sin entered the world.

If God chose at that moment to delete earth and ban humanity from the game permanently, He would remain wholly just… but He did not stop then either.

The Beta

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

-2 Peter 3:9 (ESV)

God cursed the game-- a blessing in disguise. Just as our sun is placed at a precise coordinate to prevent searing or freezing our world, our Designer is neither too near or far; excessively punishing nor dangerously lenient. If the sovereign Server who keeps us online were totally absent, we would simply cease to be (Hebrews 1:3). His perfect holiness however, cannot be hotfixed, which means that no glitched player can behold His avatar and keep their hitpoints (Exodus 33:20).

Our rebellion turned creation, which was coded for harmony with its Creator, into the buggy experience we see today. You have likely noticed that work is an exhausting grind, childbirth an unbearable pain, and death a harsher penalty than other games where you respawn in the next minute (Genesis 3:16-19). Every feature of the game - even if unmentioned in the curse - is profoundly affected, because lasting peace cannot be achieved in a life divorced from the only Lifegiver.

Fortunately, God’s choice to withhold His full wrath temporarily means we are not only spared for the moment, but restored to right relationship eternally-- through His patches (updates to fine-tune a game) beginning with the covenant to Abraham, and reaching a climax in Jesus. Outwardly, Christian players exist in the beta with everyone else; inwardly, you might say they are logged into the tau-- the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet, which symbolizes resurrection.

The Tau

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

-Romans 6:3-4 (ESV)

Jesus - God Himself fully immersed and vulnerable as a human character - willingly suffered the most agonizing of all deaths. Christ was abandoned and betrayed by His closest friends, rejected as worse than a murderer by His people, and forsaken by His own Father. God’s wrath poured out on Him, as if He was sin itself (2 Corinthians 5:21), and He endured it all with genuine joy for our sake (Hebrews 12:2). You might say He tanked (gamer lingo for “stood in the way of”) the divine punishment we deserve.

In His pure life, Jesus is the only human with full resistance against sin’s temptation (Hebrews 4:14-15). In His selfless death, He is the only player capable of repaying His race’s infinite debt to their Designer (10:11-14). In His powerful resurrection and ascension, Christ doesn’t merely prove we are even with God; He demonstrates that God actually Loves us players and desires to join our party for an infinite lifetime. (v. 19-22)

Here’s where the tau is really different from your typical video game: Jesus alone earned these achievements, and yet He also unlocks them for us. Romans 6 says that Christian faith is the same as identifying with Jesus’ death and new life. In God’s eyes, you are already pure, selfless, and Loved-- through the freely given gift in Christ.

If you not only believe Jesus existed, but trust Him alone as your salvation and follow Him in your core identity (repentance), you are a cherished son or daughter of your Designer right now (John 1:12). God’s Holy Spirit is yours to download, so you are empowered to PvP against sin and live like a chosen child in the present (Romans 8:13-15).

That said, Christians do not achieve perfection or invincibility in this version of the game. We are not always victorious (2 Corinthians 4:8-10). It is for this reason essential that we look forward to the eternal fulfillment of our game.

The Omega

“It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

-Revelation 21:6-8 (ESV)

Omega is the final letter of the Greek alphabet, and I’m talking about a game realized in a way never before seen.

This is far more than the release version of your average MMO, which will continually receive patches and expansions adding onto the product. When God ends this beta to recreate both heaven and earth, every bug - death, mourning, crying, and pain - is permanently removed (21:3-4), all things are made eternally new (v. 5), and face to face relationship with God is restored (22:4). There’s no need for additional content.

I’ll say that again: the Omega introduces a new heaven and new earth. Contrary to the misled players of beta and even at times the tau, this full game is far more than an enclosed lobby in the clouds, where we all conform into angelic avatars, spamming harp notes.

The Omega is a total recreation of our entire universe, with a heavenly city on earth in the divine spotlight (21:22-27). Our bodies are resurrected to a state wholly physical and transcendently spiritual (Philippians 3:20-21). Lastly, while worship is a key feature of the Omega, limiting this activity to music is noobish; the New Jerusalem is mentioned in the last verse to lack temples, suggesting we have a variety of other buildings within this shining city to glorify God through any aspect of debugged gameplay (Revelation 22:3). God will stop at nothing until this glorious day arrives.

Are you eagerly awaiting the Omega’s release, or are you trying to find complete satisfaction in this unfinished beta? Though this game still contains great beauty and joy, investing all our resources into those fading remnants will one day mean nothing.

When an MMO transitions from beta to the release version, you lose your character with all their progress and items. You have to start over from scratch with everyone else. Fortunately, this MMO is different, since God graciously resurrects our characters and provides us with epic gear (Revelation 7:9-10). The question is still worth honestly answering-- are you chasing after external skills, titles, and loot that won’t carry over in the full game… or surrendering all those resources for God’s will?

However, do not mistake my warning as a fatalistic and meaningless outlook for our current existence. We should not be fixated on the Omega in a way that causes us to neglect our present lives in the beta, especially in light of the tau’s grace. While many parts of this world will be eclipsed by its perfected successor, there is one area of the game which holds eternal significance...

Only people really matter

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’

Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.

-Matthew 25:34-39 (ESV)

When the Omega launches, it won’t just be our personal soul that survives into the next game, but the way we invested in other souls. This isn’t far removed from my own experiences playing the beta of Elder Scrolls Online: while my character progress is lost, my friends list and relationships built are saved. If we love other players by meeting their needs, it may affect whether we’ll reunite with them in the Omega, and Jesus remembers it as a social achievement - done unto him - regardless.

This ultimate goal is fortunate, considering the genre of game we live in. Some games are multiplayer, in that a friend or three can grab controllers and join you at your couch. Several titles even go beyond this, matching millions of internet gamers into temporary arenas of sixteen players or more. Only MMO games offer an enormous world for a whole community to share and interact in.

I do not believe the other guide (which inspired this post with its charming concept) agrees with me on this point. It calls life “the game that - literally - everyone is playing”, yet the height of its wisdom is to find personal happiness and career achievement.

If our desires are no greater than individual gain, I fear we’re pretending life is an arcade-- where we occasionally play adjacent but separate from one another, and our only community interaction is to see where we rank on the world’s scoreboard. Not only does this delusion restrict us in a world where the content is balanced for a team, but it causes us to miss the main point of the game altogether.

We’re not meant to play life solo, as God demonstrated in alpha when he called Adam’s isolation “not good.” Whether introverted or extroverted, it’s a universal player need to be known by other characters and find a wider community to belong in. As players of the tau especially, we accept the quest to contribute our individual talents in a church body (Hebrews 10:25; 1 Peter 4:10), and find accountability under God-honoring leadership (Hebrews 13:7).

Now, you might agree with this MMO perspective and importance of relationships, but living out such an ideal is its own challenge. A consequence of our exposure to the beta’s glitches is that selfless choices feel counterintuitive, and multiplayer gameplay can be punishing. We do have hope to combat this, thanks to Christ’s example of giving up everything for us (Philippians 2:4-8), combined with empowerment through the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22).

With that dependency in mind, I will end this guide by looking at five purposefully designed parts of our game. Each point is a rebuttal to the other guide’s misunderstandings, which seem to confine us in our survivalist singleplayer mindset, but actually liberate us towards a playstyle of gratitude, perseverance, responsibility, grace, and peace.

The beginning is not random

For you formed my inward parts;

you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works;

my soul knows it very well.

My frame was not hidden from you,

when I was being made in secret,

intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed substance;

in your book were written, every one of them,

the days that were formed for me,

when as yet there was none of them.

-Psalm 139:13-16 (ESV)

The character and location you are born with may seem a matter of chance, but they are actually carefully chosen designs. Psalm 139 reveals that God did not spontaneously generate humanity, but caringly crafts each of us through a character creation menu. In the ending verses, we learn our Designer even pondered us and our plot development in the game, before time existed, let alone the game world holding us players.

The other guide denies a purposeful starting place, urging players to move where they can best level skills and acquire money. While such a journey carries wise intentions, and God may personally direct some toward it, I would encourage every player to consider their current home with gratitude. Rather than packing up in desperation, we may first contemplate that our Designer ordered the relationships around us.

All game mechanics work together for the good of players who return God’s love (Romans 8:28). The zone you started at, no matter how broken, is meant for your benefit… whether to prepare you for fresh travels ahead, or to give you a home worth standing your ground for.

There is no UI for growth

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.

-Galatians 6:9 (ESV)

In your time playing this game, you have likely noticed the lack of bars, buttons, and other displays-- a user interface. While the majority of MMOs are known for clunky and overwhelming visual elements, our Designer is the first of innovative pioneers who push for a more minimalistic and immersive layout. In place of chat logs and floating combat text, we have a remarkably complex sensory interface of touch, taste, plus smell to complement sound and sight.

The only downside is that, in this intuitive system, there are no convenient “level progress” bars to display how quickly you gain skill at a musical instrument, or when overtime at your workplace will unlock the perk for a pay raise.

While this may be fairly obvious, I consider it worth mentioning nonetheless for a comparison of our game to the MMOs within it. Helping an elderly lady across the street will not bring up a karma indicator, taking out your trash cannot conjure text telling of experience points, and your teacher will not award gold tokens for the completion of homework. Sorry; I wish they did, but I have to be honest that they don’t.

However, for those who choose to persevere, there are rewards-- both in this life and the next. In the meantime, you may wish to keep track of your progress, either in reflecting, keeping a journal, or creating a convoluted real life character sheet system for leveling (guess which one I did!). Though giving up is tempting in this game where not all growth is measured and affirmed, the temporal and eternal incentives are well worth pressing on for.

Youth is not merely a tutorial stage

Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes. But know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.

-Ecclesiastes 11:9 (ESV)

You’re only young once - in this game - and even the Bible agrees we should make the most of it. But where popular rappers and a spoiled high school culture will use this truth to justify recklessness and immorality, the Christian player is instead encouraged to value this time in a joyful, productive, and responsible way.

The other guide affirmed this, recommending that players develop their skills... yet only for characters who reached their sixteenth age level. It dismissed the first fifteen years of life as a bothersome tutorial we must drudge through. This distinction suggests that significant growth is unavailable until one can obtain a job, which is inconsistent with how characters are biologically designed.

The brain is constantly strengthening and shedding connections, which correspond to skills we practice or neglect. It’s a well known fact that this development is unfinished in adolescence, but that is not to say teen players are incapable of honing skills and unlocking achievements. On an article of the National Institute of Mental Health’s website, “the capacity for learning at this age, an expanding social life, and a taste for exploration and limit testing” are noted as advantages to support the very opposite.

I sympathize with the other guide, in that the early teen years can feel pointless… but I don’t think they have to be. We can defy the low expectations of our culture for young players, inspiring these growing men and women to pursue challenging accomplishments, take personal ownership their faith, and use this formative time to level up abilities. Similarly, parental players should view no part of their children’s lives as trivial tutorial, but diligently seize each day for loving, disciplining, and teaching these characters they are trusted with.

No matter how young or old you are-- if you are currently reading my words, then you should invest in skills and achievements in the present, in a way so that when God judges our lives, He will certainly say “well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21 [ESV]).

Grace > Rewards

“In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ”

-Acts 20:35 (ESV)

There’s something powerful and refreshing about a gift. When we feel entitled to a possession or person, the accompanying joy is often short-lived. God reverses this bug in particular with the tau, because for a Christian, even the air we breathe is an undeserved gift. The great mercy of our awesome Designer allows us to see every aspect of this game through a lens of grace.

I should clarify that I’m not writing to condemn our occasional efforts to earn an achievement, or compete against fellow players in a civil way. I’m pointing out that rewards granted purely out of kindness are a more fulfilling design, and marveling at Christ’s gift while dispensing similar grace to others should be our highest focus.

The Alpha and Omega

“Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”

Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates.

-Revelation 22:12-14 (ESV)

The other guide ended on a rather somber note for this point-- the end of the game. According to its understanding: we all die at about age level 80, we lose our freedoms, and we cling to a hope that we made the right choices during our prime years.

While there is a form of wisdom to this that echoes Scripture (Ecclesiastes 12:1-8), and players should be especially vigilant to live honorably and fully since death could come at any moment (Luke 16:21), our efforts and planning rightly pale in comparison to the confident assurance of eternity.

No matter how many years you feel you wasted, you are free to surrender your whole character now; God will redeem your life for your good and His glory, whether you have decades or days remaining. Death loses its once-overpowered sting, for those players secured in Christ. Despite and even through our pasts, we discover the most epic story of all: how we were chosen and made new by the Alpha and Omega - adventurous new beginning yet forever satisfying ending - Himself.

---

When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”

“O death, where is your victory?

O death, where is your sting?”

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

-1 Corinthians 15:54-58 (ESV)