Tabletop RPG

Day Seven: Story Trumps Powers

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Today is Day Seven of 30 Days of Dungeons & Dragons, and the topic is:

Favorite Edition

ok. It’s actually day eight for me… I failed my saving throw against sleep after getting home from work around 10:30 PM, so my post is late!

I feel like we’ll all get over that.

Full disclosure: I really only have two options to choose from, 4E and 5E, even though five editions exist. I suppose it might be fair to say that since I’ve tried Pathfinder, I’ve played something much like D&D 3.5, but I absolutely hated the mechanics of that system, so I won’t address it further.

I liked 4E. I love 5E.

I first started playing D&D when 4th Edition came out. Unbeknownst to me, having no previous experience with which to compare the new books, 4th Edition focused heavily on all the cool powers your characters possessed.

Every class had a variety of options. Some could be used all the time, at-will. Some were complex or taxing enough that you could only use them once per encounter or combat. Some were the best abilities in your whole bag of tricks, and could be used only once a day.

Fighters didn’t just get better at swinging a sword or ax as they leveled up… they learned amazing techniques and maneuvers that they could employ much like how a wizard might cast a spell.

I honestly enjoyed 4th. It felt like a big deal when one of my players declared, “I draw back my bow, glare at the enemy, and unleash a Thunder-tusk Boar Strike.” Then he rolled a nat 20, and everyone cheered at the ridiculous damage inflicted on this rando bad guy.

It also felt a lot like learning your button rotations in World of Warcraft or some other MMO. Use these abilities when fighting trash mobs, and then use all these “cooldown” super abilities when fighting a boss.

4E got a lot of grief for putting the spotlight on tactics and combat, powers and spells, while leaving the story in the dark corner at the edge of the stage. I think that’s an unfair perspective–if story mattered at your tables (as it always did to my players), you could make sure the collaborative storytelling aspect shone through.

It’s an unfair assessment in my opinion, but it’s one I hear often.

Not surprisingly, from the playtest materials of 5th Edition, the D&D team made sure to sprinkle hints and ideas throughout their works, like plot seeds ready to sprout into epic campaigns.

The character sheet dedicates prime real estate to jotting down reminders for role-playing, covering what matters to the character:

  • Personality Traits, like “I have a quip for every situation, the more inappropriate, the better” and “People, like feral beasts, are not to be trusted unless broken.”
  • Ideals, such as “I’ll always lend a helping hand” or “I’m not afraid to use my strength to get my way.”
  • Bonds, such as “I would do anything for a member of my old traveling troupe” or “One day I will find my missing sister and make those who took her pay.”
  • Flaws, such as “At best, I immediately forget the plan. Most days, I directly disrupt it” or “I can never resist a pretty face.”

When you make a character, you establish these aspects and have them readily available to answer “What would Grobthar do in this situation?”

One bit that caught my eye was the character backgrounds, particularly the starting equipment that you get for being a sage instead of a charlatan, for example. The sage starts with, among other things, a letter from an old friend with a question you haven’t yet been able to answer. What question? Who is this old friend? Where might the answer be found? Why does this information matter? 

The charlatan starts with a particular scheme they use to dupe their marks – do they forge documents, run con games on street corners, or make some easy gold by selling worthless trinkets to the naive? How would you role-play this in town? Who have you fleeced in the past? Who might be looking for a refund for the fake holy relic you pawned off on them?

The trinket tables in the DMG and Curse of Strahd are full of interesting and/or creepy options that can tie into a campaign or provide additional fluff for the setting.

Also, there are rules for laser guns, jetpacks, and bombs–if your campaign needs those. Haha… “needs,” as if there is any other option.

Newer 5E books like Volo’s Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes break down the story and background elements for a variety of monsters, allowing a DM to create enemies that feel like real personalities operating inside a vivid world, with unique motivations and intentions along with distinctive features or quirks.

With Volo’s, for example, common enemies like a hag, an orc chieftain, or a gnoll pack alpha become much more than bags of hit points and loot, pursuing some obscure, vaguely evil threat while waiting for a party of heroes to come slay them for XP.

To me, 4E felt like a great game, well worth the time spent playing.

With every section of every book, the 5E materials feel like pieces of a living world that welcomes you into a story which is already being told, already ongoing, just waiting for the answer to the age-old question:

What do you do next?

Tabletop RPG

Day Six: You Need the Villain

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In my 30 days of D&D blog challenge, today’s topic is:

Favorite Deity*

*in Dungeons & Dragons

As a Christian who grew up in America in the 80s, there’s this sense that it’s wrong and EVIL™ to answer such a question. Clearly, D&D is a tool of the devil.

D&D is (usually) framed in a fantasy setting. Well, multiple settings, actually. As such, there are dozens and dozens of made-up deities, and sometimes historical pantheons are also included. If one of the fifty (or five hundred) existing divine beings doesn’t suit the needs of a campaign, just make up another!

(There’s an atheist joke in there somewhere, but I won’t make it for them.)

So, the answer for today depends on the rigidity of my options. If I have to choose from a published work, Lolth is what got my campaign-writing (and thus novel-writing) started. If I can be a little more liberal, I’ll choose my main homebrew villain, An’Khel, who is a sort of Lolth 2.0.

When the core rulebooks for 4th Edition released, I started devising a long-term story arc for my players. I delved into the details provided about the setting, including the deities described in the Dungeon Master’s Guide.  It didn’t dawn on me that the first books contained a bare minimum to run a game, instead of an exhaustive list of all possible options.

The wonderfully charming or chilling actor Christoph Waltz is quoted as saying, “Well, you need the villain. If you don’t have a villain, the hero can stay at home.”

More specifically, I needed a Big Bad Evil Guy… or God… or Goddess.

Of the options presented, two were listed as Chaotic Evil. Not simply “take over the world” bad, but “burn it all down” bad. Oddly enough, they seemed night-and-day different in how they approached that goal.

Lolth, a spider-goddess of deception, used elaborate plots and intrigue to draw her victims into her web. Gruumsh, the god worshipped by orcs, seemed more like an out of control wildfire, sending forth his minions to “Raid. Kill. Conquer.”

Surely, over the course of millennia, they had to develop some kind of rivalry, right? A bit of “Anything you can do, I can do better” sparring or one-upmanship? “My way’s better than your way” and all that.

Originally, my idea of Gruumsh was very much Lord of the Rings style orcs. “Burn. Crush! KILL!” and mindless rage along with some unhealthy pyromaniacal tendencies. Then I watched The Dark Knight and realized what a chaotic evil villain could look like.

Naturally, in my homebrew settings and novels, what started as the destructive god of rampaging orcs has taken a much stronger turn toward the chaotic side of the alignment.

With Lolth, I started reading the Drizzt books by R. A. Salvatore, trying to get a feel for a proper D&D setting as well as for this main villain. I love the schemer, the killer you don’t know is bearing down on you until the spider’s fangs have already dug into your flesh and the venom is taking its effects on your innards… and yet, with a Joker twist on my Gruumsh, I knew his objection to my Lolth would be all those plans of hers.

By definition, plans aren’t chaos, and even mind-games have rules.

…unless the plan is to flip the table and scatter the pieces.

Thus, my version of Lolth grew beyond mere deception or a “mua-ha-ha,” mustache-twirling sense of evil bent upon destroying the empires of the goodly races. (She’s already done that anyway.)

When there are established and fairly balanced dichotomies of good and evil, life and death, light and dark, order and chaos, and so on, it’s not enough to tip the scales one way or another.

The truly chaotic thing to do would be to toss a rock in the gears and bring the whole system crashing down into nothingness.

Rocks fall. Everything dies…

…unless those pesky players can stop her.

Tabletop RPG

Day Five: Gimme a Roll

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Today’s “30 days of D&D” topic is:

Favorite die or dice

I’ve bought several sets of dice over the years. I imagine that’s true of any tabletop gamer. It’s like every shelf of dice sets at the local game store or online has a +5 to all charm effects, and my Wisdom save is REALLY low.

When I started out, playing Middle Earth Role Playing with my brother and his friend, that system used percentile dice – two ten-sided dice, one for the tens, one for the ones. I didn’t need a set; having two different colors made it easy to play “fair” by declaring which was the tens and the ones. (I don’t recall seeing d10s printed with the double-digits like most sets provide.)

Eventually, my brother and his friend got started on BattleTech, which is all d6s all the time.

A little foray into Palladium’s Robotech RPG forced a purchase of some varied dice, as it used a little of everything.

I think I eventually bought some of those dirty Dungeons & Dragons dice, with all their ridiculous variety of sides and shapes, but it was out of novelty rather than need.

In that vein, I recently purchased a “quality” set of dice—something meant to be special, sturdy, lasting. Metal dice sounded amazing, and the weight in one’s hand makes each roll feel like you’re about to drop something powerful on your enemies.

Turns out, they thunk on the table in a disruptive, annoying way, even in a felt-covered dice tray.

I also picked up a set of dragon dice, black and red, something a little more ornate than the usual. Turns out they’re not always easy to read, and in the middle of a bogged-down combat, I don’t want to waste time trying to sort out what my monsters rolled against the PCs.

I’ve got a blue and silver set and a deep crimson set with clear, legible numbers, and those are my go-to game dice… but they’re not the ones that mean the most to me.

My favorites? Back in the BattleTech days, I had a pair of black six-sided dice with white pips that I used every chance I got. When I started writing a set of short stories about an Old West gambler-prophet whose dice seem to foretell the future, the black-and-white changed to black and red. I ordered a stack of those dice for use in games and for writing inspiration.

One of these days, I’ll put together the whole novel… but for now, I’ll be rolling these lovelies for D&D spell damage and BattleMech hit locations.

How about you, fellow gamers? What’s your favorite set of dice, and what game do you use them in? Hit me up with a comment and let me know.

Tabletop RPG

Day Four: A Broken World

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This is day 4 of my 30 days of D&D challenge. Today’s topic:

Favorite game world

Dungeons & Dragons incorporated a variety of settings over the years… some high fantasy, some science fiction, some with a respectable technological & magical industrial component, and some designed as minor add-ons to existing games. (5E’s version of Ravenloft as a sort of pocket demi-plane which you can enter but can’t easily escape comes to mind.)

I read a good number of Forgotten Realms books, and if I’m not running a homebrew game, that’s the easy go-to since it captures a “plain vanilla” type of game where all your options are on the table. Actually,  given the broad spectrum of options, it’s more like a plain vanilla sundae with chocolate-dipped cone pieces, sprinkles, Oreo crumbles, hot caramel, banana slices, and one maraschino cherry.

Even so, that’s a choice more concerned with what my players would want than with what I like.

There’s another setting, one with a ruined planet where the gods died off in some long-forgotten combat, or perhaps abandoned the world to a slow, suffocating demise. It’s a world where the immortal rulers of the major kingdoms fought wars using magic that corrupted the environment and forever altered the natural order. It sounds like Mad Max meets D&D, and I want to play in that world so bad.

Ever since I first read about Dark Sun, I’ve had a campaign in mind for the setting. I got the 4th Edition campaign setting guide just in time to stop running or playing tabletop games for a few years, and 5th Edition hasn’t expanded into many of the familiar settings (yet).

I even wrote a three-part campaign arc I’d run in Dark Sun, in the hopes of “someday” getting to play this particular version of the game. (A version of this arc will also become a standalone novel prequel/offshoot in the fantasy series I keep saying I’m writing.)

I could do a lot of work converting things, or trust my improvisation / BS-on-the-fly skills to carry a game through… but that would involve a lot more effort than I can commit to at this time.

So my favorite game world is one I haven’t ever touched in game… yet.

In unrelated news, the Wizards of the Coast folks that manage D&D mentioned that next month, they’ll be teasing some upcoming 5E versions of settings loved by hardcore fans… fingers crossed.

Tabletop RPG

Day Three: Lawful Stupid

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Today’s 30 Days of D&D challenge is:

Favorite PC class.

Leaving aside previous editions, 5th Ed already gives a number of strong options. I can see lots of interesting uses for bards (I even had an annoying NPC bard sing a mocking song about the heroes in the party I DM for). Rogues are fun, especially when it’s not the chaotic neutral, steal-everything-in-sight type. Sorcerers bring rolls on the Wild Magic Surge table, making for some cinematic and/or hilarious moments in-game. Warlocks offer so many story-laden options depending on where they get their powers.

Despite all that, I decided upon Paladins as my favorite.

Not exactly a paladin, since this comes from LOTRO… but he looks the part

Those who have played editions prior to 4th coined the phrase “Lawful Stupid” regarding paladins because back then, pallies had to be bastions of virtue and morality… which often turned into some ridiculous moments where a paladin refused to go along with the party’s plan OR engaged in a foolish plan of their own, all because “I have to be Lawful Good or else I lose the source of my power!”

I mean, they DID have a lot of restrictions. From Wikipedia:

Typical tenets of the Paladin code are as follows (though many variants exist):

  • A Paladin must be of Lawful Good alignment.

  • A Paladin may never willfully commit an Evil act.

  • A Paladin cannot associate with any character who persistently commits acts which would cause the Paladin him/herself to Fall – notably Evil creatures.

  • A Paladin must remain truthful and forthright at all times.

  • A Paladin must give fair warning and due quarter to enemies.

  • A Paladin holds stealth, subterfuge, attack from the rear, missile weapons and especially poison as weapons of last resort.

That might lead to conflicts with the rogue, for example:

“Not only will I not slit the sleeping orc’s throat, but I will fight you if you try to do so.”

“Oh by all the gods, who invited this dolt on the quest?”

Now, I admit, there are a lot of storytelling options connected with keeping in good ties with the Divine in order to drop those holy smites on the forces of evil. Players might lose their alignments or their class powers and be forced to make atonement for their evil ways. Or they could just go evil and find… “other” sources of power.

4th Edition said, “Hey, you know what? Evil paladins are a thing.” It makes sense in a way. If the gods can give you holy power, certainly the EVIL gods (or neutral gods) can likewise grant their power to their servants. One of the first players in a campaign I DM’d was a dwarf paladin of nature, and he was awesome.

5th Edition took it further and said, “You know what? Some paladins champion an ideal or virtue. You want to play the brooding edgelord with a past who is out for vengeance? Why not make that your oath which gives you power? You want to play that atheist paladin? Why not?”

Again, the point is broadening the story options, not restricting, so I feel like it works.

On top of that, Mike Mearls (one of the big names in D&D design) put out a video saying that classes like paladin and warlock don’t have to stay on good terms with their power source (divine beings or powerful supernatural entities, respectively), so that does away with much of the “lawful stupid” problem of the past.

This step, I disagree with, as I feel like it divorces the character and their power from the story aspect which explains their existence… but to each table and player their own.

“Do you have a moment to hear about the Dark Lord and his gift for you?”
Totally a paladin, guys… it’s fine.

Since the newer editions opened up more options, I see interesting or compelling story backgrounds that fit the class. It’s a very close competition with some of the others, but if forced to choose only one class, my PC will be a paladin.

Writing

An Alpha Among Betas

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Some days, writing is hard.

I’m not even talking about the deeply emotional, soul-searching stuff like the Hemingway quote about bleeding all over your typewriter. (If you’re doing that to your computer, get yourself checked by a doctor. Get your computer checked, too–they’re not waterproof, let alone blood-proof.)

I know, it’s supposed to be as easy as pouring words onto a page, knowing they’re garbage, so that you have something to sculpt or reshape into actual quality. It’s dumping sand into the sandbox so you can eventually build your little castle.

Like that kid in the sandbox, the castle of words I see in my mind is often quite different from what everyone else sees in the real world.

A little outside perspective is necessary.

Enter the beta reader!

Beta readers are the folks who get to see first (and second, and fifth) drafts of a novel. They’re the trusted friends and fellow writers who have the opportunity to give the vitally important reader perspective to a novelist. They can let a writer know what parts are working great and what parts need more work, long before the draft gets submitted to a publisher or to a self-publishing service.

If you’re working with a publishing house or agent, you’re probably paying for editing, or it’s part of some arrangement with your creative overlords. If you’re self-publishing, it can be liberating to avoid all the hurdles and onerous steps of the traditional process, but you’re also left in desperate need of that outsider perspective.

I’ve been blessed to have several beta readers along the way, each of whom helped make my efforts better. One of them, a friend named David, just came to Okinawa for a month-long, work-related trip, and we had the chance to bounce ideas back and forth as I look at my meager efforts on book 2.

David is a great example of how to be a beta reader. What does he do right?

  1. He gets into the setting and questions world-building.
    “If your magic system works this way, then how do you have an economy? It can’t be based on precious metals if people can simply conjure metals.”
    “It would be difficult to be a classical atheist or even agnostic in a world where people literally manifest symbols of power granted from the Divine, so have you thought about how that might change social interactions and expectations?”
    The messages in the pic above are another example, this time questioning the details of the magic system. While I had an answer, I also noted that I didn’t communicate the concept clearly enough in the story to prevent the question from being asked.
  2. He challenges the writing when it doesn’t fit the character. 
    “You made your main characters sound like middle school girls playing around and laughing when… I mean, the town might not still be on fire but several buildings are still smoldering, and Lyllithe just got kicked out of her religious order, not to mention the attack in the woods… that whole dialogue feels wrong.”
    A beta reader can also tell you which characters are hitting the mark and which feel forgettable.
    “You’ve got Lyl and Jo, and they’re great… and then there’s… uh… Blade Guy with the knives, and Mage Guy who casts spells, and the Other Guy who is scarred. I don’t know anything really about them, and so I don’t really care about them yet.”
  3. He offers tough but fair criticism that is genuinely constructive.
    Feedback like “You’re trying too hard” or “this is bad” is terrible, as it doesn’t offer any corrective option. Feedback like “I liked it” is so vague that it doesn’t identify any positive quality to capitalize upon. I suppose no feedback at all is the worst sort.
    Instead of any of that, I get moments like, “One thing to do in the future may be to pick a single metaphor or simile. There’s a lot of instances where you choose two, where one might have done. Like a child caught between two slices of cake, or pieces of candy.”
    Feedback on the actual writing is the first thing that comes to mind when discussing what makes a beta reader good, but I put it last for this reason:
    Writers need this kind of attention to the quality of their writing, but a grammatically correct manuscript might still be full of plot holes and flat characters.

David and I talked on the way to the airport yesterday, as he is headed back to the States. “It’s a unique experience,” he said of reading my book and peppering me with friendly, well-intentioned grief. “It’s not every book I read where I know the author and can message them with challenges or questions about their work. It’s not like I can email Stephen King and ask, ‘Hey, what were you thinking here?'”

Sometimes that’s exactly what we need to hear… preferably before we publish.

If you want to support a friend who is a writer, offer to be a beta reader for their work… then follow through. 

 

Tabletop RPG

Day Two: Haunted by the Past

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Throughout June, I’m working my way through a 30-day Dungeons & Dragons challenge.

Day Two: Favorite PC Race

When I started writing my first campaign, with the advent of 4th edition, I had no idea what was new or different about the content provided in the core rulebooks. To me, it all just seemed like wonderful opportunities for world-building and plot hooks.

The race of Tiefling caught my eye in a special way, before I found out that it was the first time they were offered as a player race.

Most of the Tieflings in 4th Ed were described as the progeny of a fallen empire that tried to gain power from demons and therefore had a demonic influence in their bloodline. They looked like horned devils, with glowing eyes, sharp teeth, red skin, and all the stereotypical details minus a pitchfork. In general, their reputation suffered as a result–they were described as outsiders, feared or hated since many of the “goodly” races might presume the demonic influence still affected these humanoids.

What a perfect opportunity for some underdogs out to prove themselves, or some angry citizens tired of being mistreated!

I’ve had a few players make tiefling characters in games I’ve run, and I’ve introduced a few tiefling NPCs along the way as villains or victims (or both). I even got to play a tiefling PC of my own, albeit in a Pathfinder game run by some friends.

I love fun or interesting characters, regardless of race, though I struggle to accept or fit some of the more obscure ones into my homebrew setting. That said, if I had to choose just one PC race, tiefling edges past the others.

Tabletop RPG

Day 1: Gimme a Roll

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A few months ago, I saw a lovely 30-day Dungeons & Dragons challenge slip across my feed, and I thought it would be a great way to share one of my favorite hobbies.

Dungeons & Dragons is an oft-misunderstood game. Some folks think it involves sweaty guys in cloaks swinging foam swords in the park. Others figure it’s a bunch of sweaty man-children in someone’s basement playing pretend instead of growing up. A good many religious people are certain it’s a tool of the devil to lure the unsuspecting into hell.

Come to think of it, that last one sounds like the spark of a campaign.

Here’s the challenge I’ll be attempting:

Day One: How did I get started?

I grew up in a conservative home where we were led to believe that games like Dungeons & Dragons started with actual witchcraft and ended with suicide when someone’s character died. The 80s were an interesting time, and we didn’t have the Internet… so when church leaders started declaring the dangers of these “satanic” role-playing games, the faithful listened and believed.

As a result, I didn’t pick up the books until 2008, when D&D 4th Edition came out. I was deployed and looking for something to do. As I looked through the material in the core books, I wrote what I thought would be a fun story for some characters to play through. A friend wanted to host a game night when I got back, so I volunteered to run the game.

Six of us sat around the table, starting off in a very basic and likely familiar setting:

“So… you’re all guarding a merchant’s caravan, rolling through woods infested with bandits–when all of a sudden, an arrow streaks across the thick grass near the trail and buries itself into the side of the wagon with a thok! Roll for initiative!”

That first night, I had no idea what I was doing… but I knew I wanted to do it more.

Next: Fave PC Race

Gaming

10 Surprising Uses for Tidy Cats

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Some people are really bad at small talk.

I’m standing in line at the local express store at 10:30 PM… I stopped on the way home to grab some cat litter, some Monsters for the next day, and some what-nots for the kidlets.

A random dude, paying for his things, turns and looks at me with my jug of Tidy Cats in hand. “Whatcha gonna do with that box o’ kitty litter?” he asks, his tone conspiratorial, as if kitty litter is the new gateway drug or the main ingredient in some explosive compound.

Befuddled, I mumble a weak, “uhhh… probably gonna use it for my cats.”

By the time I got to my car, in the rain, I came up with “I can’t go to the beach in this weather, so this is the closest I can get.”

Too little, too late.

In retrospect, I see a missed opportunity! What AM I going to do with all this kitty litter? You don’t know, random guy! You don’t know my life!

10. Matching throw pillows for my love seat. Accessorizing is the key to good decor.

9. Works great on tough stains in the washer. If clay is good for your skin, imagine how good it is for your delicates!

8. Needed a new stand for my router. The scented crystals help spread the wi-fi particles better.

7. Christmas present for the kids! They don’t sell coal in the local stores, and I wanted to get ahead of this year’s shopping.

6. Scours the bathtub clean. Move over, Mr. Clean! Step off, Soft Scrub. This is a job for Tidy Cats.

5. Microwaved litter is the new potpourri. Glade fresh scent strong enough for multiple cats–or the lingering stink of bad Chinese food… which might also be multiple cats.

4. My ill-conceived Tidy Cats protest continues! Take that, capitalists! I’m gonna buy your product and throw it right in the trash! Then I’m gonna go buy more tomorrow and do the same thing! Wait… uh…

3. Who needs dryer sheets? It says fresh scent right on the bottle. This has to work.

2. Staying ahead of the curve with my teens. First, it was eating tide pods, then it was pulling condoms through the nose… the next trend is drinking cat litter, and you saw it here first.

1. You haven’t tried the Tidy Cats diet?  Less calories than bacon bits, cheaper than any decent brand of croutons, and the clumping action means you feel full faster! Watch the pounds come off…

What great, creative options have I missed? Let me know in a comment.

Culture/Politics, Worship

Dear Me by Nichole Nordeman

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I bought Nichole Nordeman’s recent album, Every Mile Mattered, as a gift for my wife. We both love her depth and probing questions implied or directly stated in her lyrics from previous albums, so it was an easy decision.

I bought it, but I didn’t actually listen to it. The songs sat on my iPhone and iPad, untouched, although I occasionally placed them in to playlists for Christian music or perhaps nice background music for writing.

I had the latter on shuffle when “Dear Me” came up. It caught my attention–demanded it, really. I stopped what I was doing, googled the lyrics, and felt the message resonate with my being. Her mixture of idealism and sorrow stirred up some old things in the kettle of my heart.

The song captures what I want my faith to look like, and hits me hard because of how often I know I haven’t measured up, how often I believed the convenient party line about God’s blessings for me, instead of the messy and difficult stuff involving loving others sacrificially.

Growing up in church, how many times have I seen the “magic words” of Christian marketing pass like a wave through American middle-class suburban church culture? Whether it’s a WWJD bracelet, or a Prayer of Jabez keychain, or a Purpose-Driven Life merchandise blitz, or some new study or some new worship album or some new website that is the cutting edge of everything God is doing…

How often has the mystery and the transcendent sacred been distilled into the merchandise and the catchy slogan? How often have I gone right along?

When has my faith looked beyond what Christ is and does for me? Do I believe He came so I could live my best life now, or do I believe He called me to live His life in the here and now?

Time and again in Scripture, we see a God who is concerned about the orphan and the widow, the homeless and the prisoner. We see His people judged, not simply because they broke some religious law or strict code, but more often because of how they treated–or ignored–the plight of those less fortunate.

The prophets tell the people of Israel that God is sick of the rituals, the displays of so-called worship, the sacrifices and the religious checklist they maintain. Isaiah 58 is a prime example. “Is this not the fast I have chosen?” God declares, then lists off what He considers real worship: fighting injustice, breaking oppression, feeding the hungry, sheltering the poor, clothing the naked, reaching out to others.

I don’t want to get political here, but maybe if we hear those things and think, “Now we’re getting political,” then it says something about our politics and how they line up with Scripture.

Dear me:

Maybe what you’ve been told to believe about Jesus and what He would or wouldn’t do isn’t the same as what your book says He did.
Maybe there are no magic words in there, but there are life-giving words instead…
Ones that aren’t just meant to bless you, but to extend the blessing to the ones God says He cares about the most.