Word Weld

Fathers Day is coming up, and since I’m a father and fatherhood is important, I planned to do another piece on fatherhood. I’m not sure if this will be the only post I do for Father’s Day this year, but it is certainly a springboard for thoughts about fatherhood. A friend happened to share a video on Facebook, and it struck me for the powerful imagery it presented.

In the video, a girl waits at home for her husband (presumably), who looks as if he has had a tough day at work. When he comes inside, she hugs and kisses him, and presents him with a gift: a game console. The console resembles a Nintendo system of a bygone era, but it really is just a representation of video games in general. It’s an expensive and sweet gift, and he is clearly grateful to her, while she invites him to play some to relax and get his mind off things. But when she turns her back, something very strange happens. She turns back to find that her husband is gone, and soon after that she is pulled into the TV (after him, presumably). She endures a (literally) bloody gauntlet of video-game challenges until finally finding the man she loves at the end.

The video is somewhat graphic in places, since the girl “dies” countless times in order to progress to the end, but it struck me because of how powerful the imagery of the film is. Video games are just a thing, like alcohol, cigarettes, chocolate, sports, exercise, TV, or any other entertainment or pastime in life. They are inherently just things, morally neutral even Biblically speaking. That being said, there are numerous warnings in the Bible about the abuse of such entertainments and the inherent dangers of many of them. And one of the inherent dangers of things like alcohol, medication, TV, and video games is their powerfully addictive nature. Especially men of my generation and those following seem to be particularly drawn to and entranced by video games, which corresponds to the vast increase in video game culture and the increasing quality of said games. As a child growing up, playing Mario and X-Wing and numerous other games, I quickly developed a strong desire to play as much as possible. My parents wisely limited my time, but after I went to college, it was up to me to control how much time I spent “gaming.” Even after marriage, my wife and I had sometimes very strong arguments and even outright shouting matches about video games. As a man who was able to move past the strong addiction of video games, and put them in their proper place, I would like to share a few thoughts about video games and the strong addiction they can present. This piece is especially for husbands and fathers, but parts of it can be applied to anyone facing the addiction. I am using the video linked above, because the imagery in it is strong, and also because its presentation can appeal to gamers.

Video Games Are Not Evil, But They Aren’t Good Either

As I already said, video games are just a thing, just a combination of electronics, plastics, and images meshed together so you can play through a story or enjoy an experience. Just as wine is essentially just grape juice that’s been out too long, there is nothing inherently evil about video games. Their morality comes from how they are used. Partly, that morality comes from the developers. Some games are selling sex, horror, violence, or bad language, like Silent Hill, Resident Evil, Mass Effect, or (what is possibly the most heinous and vile game ever created) Grand Theft Auto. Others, like Mario Kart, Smash Brothers, Sonic the Hedgehog, or Spyro the Dragon, are simply trying to make money and keep it clean. But even if you’re not playing bad games, good games still have another moral component, and that is how the user behaves toward them.

That behavior can be good or bad. A game is just that: a game. But when it consumes a lot of our time, it can become a bad thing, especially if it starts to choke out other things in life that have value, or things in life that have more value. Video games, even at their most pure level, are simply a form of entertainment, and sometimes relaxation, depending on the kind of game. Arguments can be made for them stimulating the mind, or other such positives, but I will stick with my first statement: video games are entertainment. That means that they will never have more value than anything that is purely entertainment. They will never be superior to watching a good TV show, or reading a good novel, and technically could be argued to rank behind many other pastimes, like running, playing baseball, or chess. Many people forget eating or drinking, or deliberately neglect them, in order to keep playing video games. Is this really justifiable behavior? How much different is it to ignore things just as critical, like housework, sleep, or more importantly, the relationships that involve the people who love us?

In the video, the wife gives her husband the gaming system because she wants to show him how much she loves him. She never thinks for a moment that anything bad will happen, because the game is just a thing, and it is not the thing that becomes the problem, but her husband’s reaction to it.

Loneliness, Seeking, And Rejection

In the video, the wife suddenly finds herself alone, and after a few moments is unwillingly pulled into the game world after her husband. To me, this signifies the attempt that men make to incorporate their gaming addiction into their life by drawing their other relationships into it. In order to not be alone, she goes after her husband into the game world, where in order to find him she must participate in the game. I have seen this many times: a man wants to enjoy a game, but feels pressure or guilt for spending so much of his time doing it. Instead of stepping back from the game, he instead tries to draw the people he should be putting first into the game with him, often under the pretense of using the game as a medium for quality time. Now, many games can be fun to play together (it is a valid argument that almost any game is more fun played with another person),

but husbands and fathers should not be spending the vast majority of their quality time with their family playing games. Reading together (especially Scripture), playing outside, even helping with chores or homework can be opportunities to spend teaching, enjoying, and nurturing the people we love and building strong relationships, as well as fostering respect and being a good example. Games, if they are in our homes at all, should only be a part of how we interact with our families. In the video, the wife participates in the game, but her motivation is not to play the game, but to find her husband in it. She doesn’t enjoy the game; she plays the game for his sake, in order to spend time with him in the only way he seems to want to.

The most tragic part of the video comes toward the end, when the wife has endured the brutal rigors of the game and finds her husband at the end. She reaches out to him, only to be brutally attacked. In my opinion, this represents the point in the relationship when the wife, having tried to play the game with her husband in order to draw him out, realizes that she now hates the game and everything it has done to their relationship, and begins to reject it. Usually, a wife will stop playing, trying to see if her absence will draw him out of the game. In bad cases, the husband will not even notice she is gone, and that will breed resentment for him. After a time, she will actively confront him about quitting or playing less. It is this point that corresponds to when the wife of the video is attacked by her “controlled” husband. In real life, this is where the husband lashes out at his wife, making excuses such as how he goes to work and this is how he relaxes, points to vices that she has as justification, or simply attacks her out of frustration with his own wounded pride.

This dismal place is where the wife comes to in the video when she has been blasted by her husband and is lying in the dark, alone once more, hurt and bitter, with a terrible choice before her. Does she continue, and go right back to fighting through it, or does she quit, and return to an empty house? In real life, this is where a wife chooses whether to live with the game/continue fighting for her marriage, or to leave. It is a powerful imagery. In the video, the wife presses on, and not merely to live with the game, but to fight for her marriage, and for the man she loves. This is more than the average man can expect, but a woman of high character, who truly loves her husband, will choose to continue.

How It Ends/The True Face Of The Evil

The end of the video is no less profound than what has gone before it, perhaps even more so. In the end, the wife is forced to have another prolonged fight with her husband, but this time she endures it to the end, and is able to bring him to a place where he can see what has happened. Unfortunately, he is taken from her again, only to be seen again above the now-monstrous game console, plugged directly into it. This graphic and vivid imagery to me pictures how even though the wife has made him see sense about his addiction, the addiction itself is now so powerful it is a thing in and of itself, partially controlling him and yet partially controlled by him. The fight ensues once more, but this time the wife can do nothing but endure the relentless fight against the addiction that her husband is fueling. In real life, this corresponds to how a husband realizes that he has made a mistake, and that the games are taking up too much of his life. At this point, however, he is unprepared for the reality of addiction: it is a powerful thing, with many different facets and components. To his own surprise he realizes that quitting is not so easy. However, his own love for his wife and children will cause a good man and father to fight against the addiction.

The author of the video does not mention this, of course, but the breaking of such a powerful addiction oftentimes cannot be done without God’s help. Our desires are powerful and can control us, and it is God alone who can change and purify our desires. However, with his wife’s determined love, and God’s help, a man can break any controlling influence, and games are no different.

In the final scene, the most profound thing to notice is that it is not the wife that destroys the game. It is the husband. He has to resist the addiction, fight against it, and ultimately prevail. Only then can she snatch him from its clutches and race to safety. Together, they rush to escape from the now dissolving fantasy life that he has been living, and are transported back to the real world.

True Men Sacrifice

Games are fun pastimes, and can even be educational or relaxing, but there are some important things to remember whenever we become passionate about something that is not eternal:

1. What we spend most of our free time doing, is what is most important to us. If we spend free time at work, then work is most important. If watching TV is what we do most, then it is most important. What we do most of the time is what our children will view as their rival; it is what they must compete against in order to gain acceptance or love from the man they most want it from.
2. Nothing should control us except God. If something is so hard to quit that we find it difficult to even want to, then we need to consider that it may be controlling us, and nothing except God’s Word should control.
3. Our wives and children are not the enemy. When we are challenged, pride wells up, and we strike back defensively against accusations or implications. DON’T. Remember, even if you think your spouse is wrong (even if she is), no one loves you more than she does. In fact, you do not even love you more than she does.
4. Games may be many hours of enjoyment, but please remember they have no lasting, meaningful value. Games are simply entertainment, and entertainment is not what we as husbands and fathers are on this world to do. Our first responsibility is to God, our wives, and our children. Everything else is ultimately irrelevant by comparison.

Am I advocating destroying your Xbox, throwing your Nintendo out the window, and burning all of your games? If that’s what it takes, then yes. But… for most of us that won’t be the case. Most of us have not reached a point where the game becomes a full-blown addiction. It may be “addict-ing” but that’s still pretty far from where the video is at. What we need to do is know when to set the game down, and this works and is especially important for smartphones too, since those kind of games can be transported with us at all times. We need to strictly limit the amount of time we spend on games while we are with our wives or children, but most important of all: we need to be ready to give up those things that we believe are hurting our lives, marriages, and families. This is a Biblical command, after all.

And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. – Matthew 5:29-30

The context of those verses are that God is judging sin not merely by physical acts committed, but by intentions, plans, and fantasies. And it holds true for everything in life, not just things that Christ specifically mentioned, like adultery or murder. If there is something hurting our relationship with God, our relationship with our wife, or our testimony and example to our children, we need to get rid of it. In the end, we may not have to. After all, I spent some time explaining that games are nothing wrong in and of themselves. But oftentimes God or a wife will ask us to be willing to give something up, not because it is evil, but because they want us to prove to them that they are more important. Remember Abraham?

And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. – Genesis 22:1-2

Did God really want Abraham to kill his son, a son God himself had given Abraham? Certainly not. After all, God had promised that through Issac Abraham would become a great nation, and that would be impossible if Isaac were dead. Yet, Abraham took his beloved son into the mountain and was a mere muscle movement away from killing his son, because he was willing to give up what he wanted… because something else was more important. Of course, it was a test, but God (and our loved ones) will sometimes ask us to give things up for real, and either way, if we really love as we ought, we need to be willing.

Powerful imagery. The video and captured images are Copywrite Guy Collins Animation 2004.