While the next console generation is likely several years away, a new gameplay feature was potentially revealed in a patent that Sony filed… and it will make the future a lot more interesting by allowing gamers to change the PAST. That’s right Marty… where we’re going we won’t need any roads. If the new “Rewind” button that Sony has applied for to integrate into future controller technology delivers on its’ promise, it will finally be time to go “Back to the Future” by allowing gamers to rewrite the past. Just imagine it… the ability to immediately undo a bad choice that we wish we hadn’t made, to rewind a cutscene containing critical exposition that we missed, or simply reverse the painful moment that we dropped a game-winning touchdown. This new “Rewind” button represents a LITERAL game-changer for all of us… but whether that is a good thing or not is a question only the future can answer.

For now, we can only imagine how much easier our games will become when we are able to immediately right a wrong or undo a mistake with the touch of a button… while most games allow us to reload a checkpoint or a previous save file if we mess up, the ability to “rewind time” represents an opportunity to erase that bad decision entirely. That interception that was returned for a touchdown? It never happened. That boss that was down to their FINAL bar of health when we missed a critical attack that would’ve ended the game? Let’s rewind time and try that exact same moment again. The moment the clock ran out before we could make it to the flagpole? Just go back to any previous point in time and make different choices using knowledge from the future that our past self didn’t possess. But if it seems like having the power to change the past might do more harm than good, you are onto something… because as tempting as it can be to rewind our poor decisions and make different ones, the ability to grow and learn from our mistakes is what makes us more skillful and resilient gamers.

In my real world adventures, I can point to MANY moments in my life that I would LOVE to simply grab a controller, press the “Rewind button”, and change… from sinful decisions that I would give anything to undo, to problems I could’ve avoided or prevented if I only knew what the outcome would be in advance. And as we conclude our series on feeling “unworthy”, there is one final area of “unworthiness” that we need to address… the challenge of containing a God-given dream that we feel we are disqualified from because of the past decisions we have made that we cannot erase. If you didn’t join us for the first three entries in our “Unworthy” chronicles, here they are to help you get caught up:

https://findinggodintheworldofvideogames.com/2024/09/15/concord-a-failure-to-launch/

https://findinggodintheworldofvideogames.com/2024/09/22/unworthy-stepping-forward-from-self-disqualification/

https://findinggodintheworldofvideogames.com/2024/10/27/unworthy-among-us-and-impostor-syndrome/

As I have pondered the moments in life that I wish I could undo, I scoured the Bible for perfect people that the Lord used to accomplish His purposes on this planet. Guess what I found? Nothing. Not one name came up… but what I DID find brought me some much needed encouragement that no matter how big my mistakes have been, in His mercy He still uses imperfect, messed up, and flawed individuals to perform the work of the Kingdom. How do I know? Well… because imperfect, messed up, and flawed people are the only kind of people who exist.

• Adam and Eve made the most infamous mistake in all of recorded history… but rather than wipe them off the face of the planet, the Lord still made them the “first family” to populate the earth.
• Abraham fathered Ishmael during a crisis of faith and repeatedly lied about his wife being his sister because he was afraid, but the Lord still selected him to be the father of His chosen people.
• Jacob was a deceitful con man who manipulated friends and family for personal gain, but the Lord still picked him to be the patriarch of the line that would bring Christ into the world.
• Moses was fugitive from justice with a murder charge on his record, but the Lord still chose him to be the deliverer who would let His people go.
• David took another man’s wife, committed adultery with her, and then had her husband killed… but the second child that was born to David and Bathsheba was the one chosen to become the wisest, richest ruler in the history of the world.
• Peter denied his best friend and Savior in a moment of panic and fear, but he was still the one who the Father selected to give the most famous sermon in recorded history.
• Paul was an active persecutor of the church, but God saw him as a champion of faith who would write the majority of the New Testament.

And on and on it goes… name after name of imperfect, unworthy contributors who make up the “faith hall of fame”, all of whom made some seriously terrible decisions that they would probably love to erase from history. But the Lord didn’t remove them from His plans… His gifts and callings are without repentance, and that gives each of us hope that we don’t need to reach for the “rewind” button. We just need to press that “repent” button and get back to being about the Father’s business.

Romans 11:29-32  For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For as you were once disobedient to God, yet have now obtained mercy through their disobedience, even so these also have now been disobedient, that through the mercy shown you they also may obtain mercy. For God has committed them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all.

Now in the interest of balancing the equation, sins we have repented of STILL carry consequences… Adam and Eve doomed all of their future children to live out their lives on a fallen planet, Abraham’s attempt to answer his own prayers resulted in perpetual conflict between the children of Ishmael and the descendants of Isaac, and the firstborn child born to David and Bathsheba passed away. Even in the case of the prodigal son, the poster child for all of us “unworthy” followers of Christ, his acceptance and the restoration of his relationship with his father STILL didn’t rewind all of the losses he had incurred. The father in the parable, when speaking to his older child (who didn’t squander his gifts on sinful, fruitless pursuits) made it clear that all of his remaining possessions belonged to HIM… the prodigal son was brought back into right standing with his father through his act of repentance, but that didn’t replace what he had lost or the time he couldn’t get back.

Luke 15:11-32 A certain man had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, “Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.” So he divided to them his livelihood. And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living. But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land, and he began to be in want. Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself, he said, “How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.'” And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. And the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.” But the father said to his servants, “Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found. And they began to be merry. Now his older son was in the field. And as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said to him, “Your brother has come, and because he has received him safe and sound, your father has killed the fatted calf.” But he was angry and would not go in. Therefore his father came out and pleaded with him. So he answered and said to his father, “Lo, these many years I have been serving you; I never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him.” And he said to him, “Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found.”

While it is NEVER advisable to continue to live our lives in disobedience to the Lord’s commands (Romans 6:1-2), it is equally true that He knew every mistake we would make before we ever made them and yet He STILL chose us for the specific missions that we have been assigned on this planet (Romans 8:30). So… how do we move forward from our past when we know that we are completely unworthy vessels of His grace who have failed Him more times than we want to remember? Well, it all comes back to our “rewind” dilemma… the Lord doesn’t simply slap an Uno “Reverse” card down on our sins so we can all pretend they never happened. While He has chosen to forget our sinful mistakes through the forgiveness that Christ’s atoning sacrifice has provided to all who will receive it (Isaiah 43:25, Hebrews 8:12), He does something better than simply erase these decisions from our memories or rewind time so they never existed. He USES them, both in our lives and the lives of others, to show how merciful He truly is. He clothed Adam and Eve after their fall and promised a path of reconciliation even after they had failed Him. He loved and blessed Ishmael even though he was born out of alignment with the promises that He gave Abraham. He built the children of that trickster Jacob into the “House of Israel”, He loved and blessed Solomon even though his parents were brought together under the worst of circumstances…. the list goes on and on. The Lord didn’t erase their stories or rewind their sins so He could love them and use them… He loved them and used them despite their periods of poor decisions.

For those of us who still struggle with feelings of “unworthiness”, here is my encouragement to you… we are ALL unworthy of the smallest of the Lord’s grace, and if He was limited to using those who are worthy of their calling then He couldn’t use a single one of us. And if you are wishing for a time machine that will give you a chance to erase your past mistakes so you can create a different future where you can serve Christ from a better place, I have some great news for you. No, I didn’t find a time machine… instead I found the secret of serving Christ from a place of being “unworthy”. He uses us, even in spite of our past failures, because someone else NEEDS to see that there is hope for them after their unfaithful start. That is why He never sanitized the Bible and removed all of those embarrassing stories about David’s infidelity or Peter’s cowardice… He wrote them and intentionally left them there so we could find encouragement from seeing how these imperfect followers were still used by Him to change the entire world. So don’t spend another second allowing the enemy of our souls to taunt you with the mistakes of your past or allowing your shame to disqualify you from the mission that the Father has placed into your heart. He called us KNOWING that these mistakes would be part of the tapestry of our lives… and He built our story around them so we could reach others that couldn’t have been reached any other way.

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