As many of you know by now, I'm a Christian. I attend a biblical university and am strong in my faith in Christ. Another thing many people know about me is I'm a gamer. I play every format of games I can for first-person shooter (FPS) to sandbox role-playing games (RPG). I'm sure many of you are thinking that Christianity and my faith have nothing to do with my gaming. You would be wrong. Christians all over the country, and I'm assuming the world, struggle with gaming as a place to let anger get the best of them. I'm no exception to this rule.
Throughout regular days of work and play, we hold our tongues and filter out things we shouldn’t, but maybe that we want, to say in the moment. This isn't the case while gaming. Gamers spend a lot of time going through menus, looking up strategies and attempting to reconcile missing points from their losing streak from the prior experience. This often allows for there to be a lapse in judgement when coming to the filter that dictates speech and anger. As Christians, the Bible tells us that anger can be sinful, and having hatred in your heart for a brother makes you liable to the same judgement as those who murder.
Christian gamers look at this article and feel the eyes turn on them as they recount all the times that they hated on someone that trashed them in that online game they love playing. They're thinking through all the times they let a curse slip past their lips in a rage whenever they got stuck in a bad situation. These things should cause a pause in every Christian gamer’s world, where they step back and realize all of the things they've said and done in the name of raging.
As much as I hate to admit it, I'm also at fault for those sins in my life. Letting anger from a video game cloud my judgement. I have a very good friend named Stephen, who consistently holds me responsible for my language and attitude in game. He's a good friend, as he deals with my sinful behavior and reminds me who I'm supposed to be living for every day through everything I do. He started a gaming club at my college that he hopes will be capable of going into tournaments and be capable of preaching the attitude of a Christian gamer to others like us, who rage and get angry for the wrong reasons.
This is really geared toward those Christian gamers out there who have been spending a lot of time raging and not a lot of time showing Christ’s love through the formats they play in. Rather than yelling at your team for not being good enough, try to encourage them in love. The more I implement this idea, the more I get honored in the games I play. People respect kindness, and even if they don’t, you show it anyway, because Christ first showed kindness to us. If you're there at your computer, angry at your game, remember who you're living for and you may remember that you should be showing love, not anger.
