A New Addiction…You Oughta Try This!
DISCLAIMER: I do not stand to profit materially or financially from your becoming hooked on the addiction I’m pushin’. You and I and many others may gain significantly in other ways, however.
I have a problem with addiction. Spider Solitaire. Sudoku. 2048. Mrs. PacMan. Free Cell. Space Invaders. Centipede. I could name a few more…
I hope that acknowledgement doesn’t sound like I’m making light of people who struggle with substance abuse and other destructive addictions.
Confessions of a Shopaholic got so many things right about addiction. When the main character said she shopped and it made her feel better, I got it. Not because I’m a shopaholic. But because I tend to look for diversions—ways to get my mind off all the things that so easily bog me down.
So, my tendency as long as I can remember is to start playing a game, only to find myself really struggling with self-control. It all starts with feeling a little stressed. Or maybe a lot. When I was younger, I would do word search puzzles. Now I almost always have a screen in front of me.
When I won my first Free Cell game, I got so excited, I had to play again. When I then realized they were always winnable, I loved the challenge of seeing how long of a winning streak I could gain. But then if I lost, it was such a bummer, I had to play again until I won. And I would write down the number of the game so that I could beat that game. Minutes could easily turn into hours as I literally KILLED time.
As I began having more grey hair and realizing my time on earth was limited, I began thinking of what it meant to kill time. And I realized the time I was killing was mine—the precious limited minutes of my life.
If I knew I only had one day left to live, would I really want to spend it playing a computer game?
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with playing games. And they are a great diversion. A way to unlax. (My husband coined that term because relax implies you’ve done it before.) If you can enjoy them in moderation. So I tried to moderate myself. Time limits. Game limits. Goals.
Eventually, I would just have to go cold turkey and press delete or drag the game to the Recycle Bin. It is a liberty I cannot allow myself. I have to flee temptation.
But, I wanted a way to pass the time when riding in the car or when I needed a diversion. As I prayed and gave up Sudoku, Spider solitaire, and 2048, God provided me with a productive—even transformative addiction. An addiction that has proven a blessing personally and that God has used to help me encourage others.
Way back when I first became a Christian, I would come across a verse as I read the Bible or heard someone preach that God would use to speak to me, and I would write it down in my journal or on a notecard to help me remember it.
I discovered early on that memorizing wasn’t so much the challenge. Keeping verses memorized was.
And over the years, an ongoing conversation frustration has been to be able to recall the idea or part of a verse, but not the whole thing or the reference. Especially when I know that God’s Word is authoritative.
I cringe at sounding like a commercial. Instead, think of me as a pusher. A ScriptureTyper app pusher.
If you get addicted to The Scripture Typer app, you won’t need to play any other computer games. You can get the Pro version for about 10 bucks, which allows you to import whichever version of the Bible you want. Or, if you’re like me, and you’ve memorized verses over the years in KJV, NKJV, NASB, ESV, NLT, and NIV84, you can import a combination of texts.
If you’ve memorized a psalm or a whole group of verses, you can import them individually or as a group for review, or both.
If you want to memorize new verses, you can record yourself saying them and then listen at your convenience. Great for riding in a car or long walks or even while shopping.
When you’re ready to start typing, you can begin by typing on top of the words, and then progress to filling in blanks for missing words, and then type the whole verse. Plus, it only makes you type the first letter of each word, so that makes it fun and saves time.
To review the verses, you can use flash cards or earn points by typing the first letter of each word.
If you have a competitive nature, the ScriptureTyper ranking and points system can motivate you to review your verses often. The more you memorize and review, the more points you earn, and you get to see yourself moving up the ranks.
It can easily become a pride thing, though, so if you’re like me, you’ll want to come up with a fun way to disguise yourself.
The best part is not the “game,” aspect, as fun and motivational as that is. The greatest and most rewarding part part is how when I’m talking to the Lord or anyone else, my mind is so saturated with His Word, that it’s just there. By exposing myself to it as regularly as I would a game, I find that my thinking is constantly being transformed. And I feel good, not guilty about how I’ve used my time.
I pray that the Spirit would help me to be a doer of His Word, and not a hearer, or memorizer only, deluding myself.
“Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time, for the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” Ephesians 5:15-17