Well, that was disappointing… after gaining so many valuable experience points and getting SO CLOSE to the next save point in my game, I was defeated in combat and lost it ALL. All the hard work that I put in to get there, all the XP I had gained by successfully enduring and overcoming each challenging battle to get to this point, all GONE… and now I am tasked with starting ALL the way back at my previous save point with nothing to show for my last run except lost time and even less patience. Sure, I suppose I learned a lot about what lies ahead of me… and I’m a little bit more prepared this time than I was on my first attempt, but that doesn’t make it any easier to accept that I have lost all that I had acquired since my last “save point”. Fortunately, the game gives me a path to redemption… but it will require something from me first. In order to successfully “retrieve” all of the XP that I lost in my defeat, I have to go back through all of the areas that I just battled through, find the enemy who had bested me, and get what they took from me BACK.

For those who haven’t played it, Star Wars: Jedi Survivor is one of the few modern games that do not have a “save anywhere you want” function, limiting gamers to only being able to save their games at pre-determined “save points”. While there are a few benefits to this design approach, it also means that falling in combat has a heavier cost than games that simply permit us to reload our last save from a few seconds ago and try again. While losing our progress after perishing is pretty standard in most games, Jedi Survivor has a pretty nifty way to “restore” all of that missing progression… we must return to the place where we were defeated and face the exact same opponent who previously defeated us. Upon returning to “the scene of the crime”, the game is kind enough to illuminate our adversary with a glowing light that indicates their possession of our stolen XP… and upon successfully engaging them in battle, we can gain back everything we lost. If only things in life were always this easy…

If you are anything like me, you have lost some things in life, too. Time, loved ones, relationships, capabilities, possessions… many times it can feel like my path in life has a great deal in common with my struggle to make progress in Jedi Survivor. Getting stuck on one area forces me to go back to a “restart” point over and over and OVER again until I can finally get it right and move ahead… and in the meantime I feel like I am wasting valuable time, energy, and resources just to get back to the exact same place I was before. And my anxiety is compounded by the knowledge that I am not getting any younger… I have less time each day to move my journey forward, making any non-fruitful time even more painful to absorb. Sure, there is knowledge I have gained, skills I have grown, and lessons I have learned through my repetitive efforts to advance… but that doesn’t make it any easier to accept the reality that sometimes I will spend a great deal of time and effort just trying to get back to square one.

If I may get slightly personal for a moment, I have lost a LOT in my life… sometimes because I carelessly explored areas well beyond my skill level and was defeated in battles I was not fully prepared for, and other times because I made costly errors in judgment and sinful decisions that resulted in catastrophic losses that can never be recovered. And if you have experienced some of these same heartbreaking setbacks or are currently dwelling in a place that is defined by pain and loss, I have some encouragement for you… but we are going to have to go back to an old save point to get there. Way back in 2 Samuel 11 we find King David, ruler of Israel, fresh off of multiple successful conquests in life. David had just finished making peace with the last remaining family member of his predecessor King Saul (2 Samuel 9) and was in a relative place of peace after gaining massive victories in battle with the Philistines, Moabites, Ammonites, and Syrians (2 Samuel 8 and 10). But David was about to experience one of the greatest falls from grace in the entire Bible on one fateful night… the evening he allowed his eyes to wander onto Bathsheba.

If you know the story, you already know where this is going… for those who don’t, it is one of the saddest chapters recorded in Scripture, as the soul who was previously called “a man after God’s own heart” does the unthinkable, graduating from lust and adultery to cold-blooded murder to cover up his dark deeds. And as this tragic story reaches its’ climax, David finally reaches a point of clarity on his exceedingly sinful decisions… but it is too late to close the “Pandora’s box” he has opened. His affair with Bathsheba resulted in a pregnancy that would culminate in one of the greatest losses a soul can endure… the death of his child.

2 Samuel 12:13-18a So David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die. However, because by this deed you have given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also who is born to you shall surely die.” Then Nathan departed to his house. And the Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife bore to David, and it became ill. David therefore pleaded with God for the child, and David fasted and went in and lay all night on the ground. So the elders of his house arose and went to him, to raise him up from the ground. But he would not, nor did he eat food with them. Then on the seventh day it came to pass that the child died. 

Those are hard words to read… it is an outcome too horrifying to consider. As someone who has personally experienced the pain of losing a child, I can share from my own grief that there is no heartache in life that compares to this. While we could probably spend hours discussing every aspect of David’s fall and the equity of the consequences he endured as a result, here is the bottom line… the child born of this union was lost to both David and Bathsheba, and at this point a decision had to be made. David had repented, prayed, fasted, and attempted everything in his power to turn this judgment away… let’s see how he responded to the devastating ending to this broken chapter in his life.

2 Samuel 12:19-25 When David saw that his servants were whispering, David perceived that the child was dead. Therefore David said to his servants, “Is the child dead?” And they said, “He is dead.” So David arose from the ground, washed and anointed himself, and changed his clothes; and he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he went to his own house; and when he requested, they set food before him, and he ate. Then his servants said to him, “What is this that you have done? You fasted and wept for the child while he was alive, but when the child died, you arose and ate food.” And he said, “While the child was alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, ‘Who can tell whether the Lord will be gracious to me, that the child may live?’ But now he is dead; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.” Then David comforted Bathsheba his wife, and went in to her and lay with her. So she bore a son, and he called his name Solomon. Now the Lord loved him, and He sent word by the hand of Nathan the prophet: So he called his name Jedidiah, because of the Lord.

Well… that was certainly unexpected. But within this tragic tale of loss and restoration is a critical lesson for each of us… rather than bury himself in the painful grief and deep regret of his sinful actions and their horrific ramifications, David demonstrated a stunning level of clarity as he looked with hope towards the eternal future he would spend with this child as well as turned his eyes towards the remarkable grace he was still being shown in the present. Yes, David endured catastrophic loss, and I doubt that he ever stopped missing the child he lost. I know I haven’t. But David also experienced an incredible restoration from the Lord during his remaining days on this side of eternity… a grace I have also received as we eagerly await the birth of another child in our own family.

Sometimes, like in the case of David, the loss and heartbreak we experience in life is a consequence of the sinful decisions we have made. Other times, like in the life of Job, the tragedies we endure have nothing to do with any actions we have made, and are actually part of a larger narrative that we cannot see or comprehend at this time. Both of these men of faith, for different reasons, experienced the kind of setbacks that would make any one of us decide to throw our controllers away in frustration and quit the game. But here is the lesson I learned from Jedi Survivor as well as from both of their experiences walking through the literal valley of the shadow of death… restoration is only possible when we make the decision to MOVE FORWARD in faith (Psalm 23:4). If David had allowed his grief to consume him so that he would never try again, there would never have been a Solomon… the existence of Solomon is proof that David didn’t simply move on with his life, he moved FORWARD. He chose to trust that THIS TIME things would end differently… his sins were now firmly placed in the past, his relationship with the Lord and his wife Bathsheba were back on solid ground, and the Lord blessed David and Bathsheba with restoration in the form of a new child (2 Samuel 12:25). The story of Job also finished with a happy ending, with Job experiencing a miraculous restoration after enduring his undeserved attacks from satan, celebrating the birth of ten children and getting to see his grandchildren to the fourth generation before he passed on to reunite with the children he had lost (Job 42).

In Jedi Survivor, there is a key component to achieving “restoration” of what I lost in the game… I have to be willing to return to the place where I lost my progress, moving forward with faith that I WILL overcome this battle and gain back all the XP that was stolen from me. I might be in this position because I made critical mistakes in my previous approach that I will remedy during this attempt, or it could simply have occurred because I was facing a challenge far above my skill level and went into this fight unprepared. Either way, I will have to face the same adversary that defeated me head-on… and I will not experience restoration of what I have lost until I am willing to go back to the place where I previously fell and press through until I am victorious. The same womb that previously birthed the child that David and Bathsheba lost was also the nurturing home for Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived. The same home that represented so much pain and loss for Job was the place he would one day rock his great, great, great grandchild to sleep. The sealed tomb that represented the death of Christ and previously held His broken body is the location of His greatest triumph… and on and on it goes. The place of our greatest fall from grace or most painful setbacks in life only becomes a permanent monument if we allow it to remain there… but the path to restoration is a journey walked hand in hand with the Lord as we allow Him to cleanse our repentant soul, heal our broken heart, and renew our faith in His ability to make these dry bones live again (Ezekiel 37).

My encouragement to you today is this… it is our enemy that tries to bury us in shame for the sins we have repented from and uses our previous tragedies to keep us from moving forward after he has killed our dreams and stolen our joy… it’s in his job description (John 10:10). Satan would like nothing better than to see the children of God wallowing in despair, afraid to embrace our God-given destinies because we believe the Lord’s grace is sufficient enough to cleanse us but lacks the strength to RESTORE us. We have NOT been given a spirit of fear (2 Timothy 1:7)… and as I have found EVERY time I have moved forward in Jedi Survivor, that enemy that knocked me down last time WILL eventually fall. Did I mess up the first time, the second time, maybe even the tenth time? Yes… yes, I did. I was too careless, too clumsy, too cocky, or maybe just unfortunate in my original approach. But restoration is ASSURED for all of the Lord’s children who are willing to return to that place of previous defeat and allow the Lord to give us the strength to not only face them, but refuse to permit them to define us (1 Peter 5:10, Job 42:10). No matter how we got into our place of trauma, there IS a restoration for each of us on the other side of even our darkest tragedies… both in this life as well as the life to come. How do I know? Because in the Lord’s infinite grace and mercy He has blessed us with not one but TWO beautiful girls to bring restoration to our little family… and one day we will all be reunited together on the other side. The Lord used the very place that once represented our deepest pain and loss to restore our joy (Psalm 51:12)… and we know He can do the same for you 🙂

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