A Hero Named Pac-Man

Way before Halo 4 and Black Ops 2, the fate of the world rested on one little joystick, a lot of quarters, and a hero named Pac-Man.
The concept was simple; run around a maze and eat all the little white dots while avoiding the ghosts and looking out for random fruit that could give you more life. Eat all of the dots and you get to move on to the next level. You could not move onto the next level until you had eaten every last dot.
I think I may have a mild case of OCD because when I play Pac-Man I have to eat all of those dots in the same order and I never ever leave one corner of the board without getting every last dot. I have had too many times where one lone dot in the opposite corner has stood between me and finishing the level. I hate going all the way back through a maze of angry ghosts to just pick up one last dot.
For some reason, that doesn’t translate into life very easily. We are always so eager to move onto the next level that we neglect the things we still need to accomplish. We move at our pace and think that because our circumstances have changed that we are better people. We have resolved to live our whole life running away from the things they were created to conquer. We commit their lives to being chased by their ghosts.
The ghosts created by Namco in this legend of the arcade only came in four color varieties but the ghosts that keep chasing us day in and day out could look like a million different things.
Some of them look like that thing that you did once that you knew was wrong but did anyway and still feel guilty for.

Some of them look like that thing that that person said about you that God says is false but you still keep secretly believing and holding onto as your identity.

Some of them look like that person you know you should talk to and invite to church but you haven’t found the courage to talk about anything “spiritual” yet so now you just avoid them at all costs.

Some of them look like that addiction that you have tried your best to ignore but just won’t go away no matter how many times you promise God at the altar.

The game of Pac- man can go on for days on one quarter. You can spend your entire life running around the map always avoiding those ghosts that keep chasing you hoping for a cherry to make you feel better but one day the ghosts will catch up to you and corner you. With every level, the ghosts get faster and sneakier and unless something changes fast you will get eaten.
It is our destiny to be chased by ghosts. After all, there are four crafty digital apparitions to our one big yellow cheese ball pie thing, and those clever Japanese guys who thought up this crazy story line of a game want it to be impossible to win. But no game is truly impossible, because nobody would ever play it. A good game has to only seem impossible. There has to be a glimmer of hope somewhere.

The glimmer of hope is that big flashing dot that hides in the corner of every level. It is that dot that once we get to changes everything. The music changes, the colors flash, and we become a Super cheese ball pie thing that can now turn around and eat those things that have always hunted us. This is the most simple and profound way I have ever been able to describe the power of the Holy Spirit. God is just sitting there, waiting on us to go after Him and then He empowers us to conquer everything on the map. He fights our battles for us and defeats all those things that would have defeated us.

True freedom is possible. You do not have to run from the things you have always run from. Run to Jesus.