First, AI is fun and silly and no the art doesn’t look like me but you get the idea. So after a period of redirection and a bit of feeling overwhelmed, I took the whole “Be Still” approach and prayed over my struggle. As with most struggles when walking out a God given purpose, you quickly or maybe not so quickly realize the problem is you. Obviously, the problem isn’t God. In my case, it was a lot of disobedience. While it is painful to admit it, the boiled down version of any struggle will almost always lead you back to disobedience. Now, me being me and you being you, I’m gonna take a leap since I don’t know all of you personally, disobedience doesn’t look at all like that is the issue when you are in the midst. So, let me break it down.

#1 – God shows me the idea in one part only. Need to know basis and I don’t need to know because God knows me and what will happen way before I do.

#1 – My response to what I’m given is to jump in both feet and do a whole lot of various things that “I” think is what God meant and all the things “I” think will make it great. I don’t ask. I don’t pray. I just forge ahead full steam and say “TAH DAH!” at the end.

#2 – God, being a God of wonderful grace, smiles at my cute little picture of sunshine and flowers and sighs, giving me a gentle pat on my dense little head and speaks slowly, letting me know that all that work was great – EXCEPT – not exactly how this is going to work. So, 10% of what I did is good, 80% needs to be reworked completely for the gaming format that this will become and the other 10% needs to be scrapped and redone completely.

#2 – I respond with a tantrum. OK, not a real tantrum of the kicking and screaming kind. I don’t actually get mad and stomp my feet, literally. I’m far more respectful of God than to do that. Oh, no! I am a stealthy protester. I instead choose to take one little part of what God asked of me and to again, without asking for any clarification at all, take that one thing and focus in on doing it by creating a huge and complicated way of doing it that makes sure all my time is taken up by that one part, and nothing at all is accomplished on the other part for a while. The part that is in fact the most important part. All attempts to get my attention back on track are met with my “Yes, Lord as soon as I do what you asked.”

#3 God being God, leaves me to it for a while, as I am trying to do something that is part of the plan even though I’ve veered off the road into the forest of complexity that is certainly not required. God even graciously allows me to have success in the extra because it serves a purpose that is part of the larger picture, but as the new side gig grows and grows, God starts making it clear, that I need to refocus on the important project at hand and stop the lollygagging.

#3 I respond with a clever technique of negotiating with God. Well, since I’m doing A then can I do B this way. OR God, you asked me to take care of this problem, so if you can just help this finish faster, then I can move onto that the other. As I reflect, I think of my own children when we’d say our prayers and they would be God Blessing the postman, the stray cat that lives in the bushes, the librarian at the school, and so they would go to delay the whole getting to sleep thing. That was me, delaying the whole getting the Go Godly work I had completed revamped into a gaming format.

#4 – God apparently decided that giving me bite sized pieces because I was acting like a toddler would be a worthwhile approach, so I was given the books to work on.

#4 – I happily worked on them and as God poured them into me, I poured them out onto a document and into a program to illustrate them and off to KDP to create them for sale on Amazon.

#5 – God knows my heart and mind struggle, well. God knows all of us well. So, buoyed by my lack of resistance, another direction was given.

#5 I faceplanted. Not in the at God’s feet, “I’m so sorry” way that might have been warranted. Oh no, not me. I literally ran face first into a wall of disbelief. Ironically, I am a HUGE believer in the power of God to do ANYTHING. So, why was it when tasked with putting this whole gaming concept together using all the information that is already done was giving me such angst. Well, that is simple. I was fully aware that I COULD NOT DO IT. Which of course is the WHOLE POINT. I’m supposed to participate as GOD directs and let GOD do it. I’m merely the typist, sort of like David was just good with a sling shot. Being good at storytelling, typing, and creating fun and educational activities for kids is my sling shot. God is taking all that and doing what is impossible for me, which is the point. Sadly, the point caused me to hit a wall and bang my head upon it in frustration while whining “I don’t know what to do” and “I can’t do this”.

#6 – God tells me to “Shut up and sit down.” I share this because this is not my finest moment and God has never ever spoken to me harshly in my whole life and when I tell you that there have been a lot of instances along the way that might have deserved it, never has God yelled at me. To be clear, in my experience, God isn’t a yeller. Probably because it is not required and God’s shout would probably explode planets. So while the message was as stated above, it was not the way a parent yells at their kids to “Knock it off”. It was a statement, calm and firm.

#6 Me being me, took offense at first. I know. I shook my head at myself. I’m truly not an idiot, its just this process for all the greatness of it, has been very complicated and difficult for me because, I “think” I’m helping and trying to do my best and I’m not remembering to focus back with God. Certainly all my nonsense isn’t intended disobedience, or is it? I gotta admit at the point I realized this, I was sad, upset and a bit scared. Was God going to fire me? Or worse?

#7 God being God gave me two things. “Finish” and “Just ask”. God is always short and to the point.

#7 Okay, God. I will. So, things have been moving forward. I am far from perfect in this, but a lot has transpired. Although me being me, all I see is the mountain of what needs to be done still and I do still forget to ask, but God refocuses me as soon as he notes I’m heading into the weeds.

So, what ever have we been up to. Well, all of the room design mock ups are completed thanks to AI and Canva. What started as a spreadsheet filled with ideas and words, is now colorful artwork to give the design team a vision for each area. Additionally, while the initial plan was to have every door in the Kingdom lead you into a different play area for the adventure, with 175 doors in each level and 7 levels that would be insane. You see my feelings of overwhelmingness? God, enlightened me to take each idea for an area and center it so there is an entry area, that gives the player 7 different places to go within that area. Best, way to help you with a visual, is to think of Disney World. The entry area is Mainstreet USA with the central point of Cinderella’s castle, then the “lands” where all the rides and such are located surround the castle – there is Frontierland, Adventureland, Fantasyland, Tomorrowland, and Liberty Square. So, depending on what age the player is in the game, they would be directed to….let’s say Adventureland and there would be the game area to complete the adventure to get their award for whatever game they are playing there. Now, there are many ins and outs beyond that, because while fun it is also to learn things, but this was HUGE. And God gets all the credit, because among the few talents listed early, game design, game concepts, and graphic design are NOT listed and all of this is deep water for me to keep swimming in.

Once this was completed, something wonderful happened. I got it. Well, sort of. Again, this isn’t about me understanding but about me trusting God to show me what to do. Understanding the ins and outs isn’t necessary to the success of this at all. Weird to me, the recovering control freak. Next, I took all the pages of all the Adventure areas and aligned them to the 27 or 30 lessons for each level. Now the “lessons” were initially designed to be pop up .pdfs that were fillable and kids would complete the questions or activities on them and submit it and we would issue the award after they were reviewed. So, they are currently set up without answers and are 100% not designed to fit into this gaming concept. This was where I faceplanted at first, by the way. Imagine 20 to 25 pages of questions for some of the activities at the high school level filled with questions and information and scriptures all having to be transformed into A) a game B) a game that let’s them answer questions somehow C) A game that will give them the lesson information in a fun and interesting way D) a game that allows them to submit activities or pictures of completed projects E) a game that is challenging, fun, and exciting for kids from Pre-K to 12th grade. YEP, faceplant.

Ahhh, but God. So, early on in the writing all the curriculum part of this adventure, God showed me to start working on the hardest and longest part for the 11th and 12 graders because it took almost a year to complete. Starting off with the hardest lessons, meant as I went along it would get easier, which helped me see that all important light at the end of the tunnel. So, that is the direction for this part as well.

And for a fun example of how the cooperative works in this Godly endeavor, I’ll share my latest work. The adventure is called “Card Sharks” and it is teaching 11th and 12th graders a bunch of card games. Initially, it was directions to play a bunch of games from solitaire to poker to games from other countries with a completion activity that they create their own version of Go Fish using a graphic program like Canva. Then as the gaming aspect came to light it was going to be in a room that was a game room filled with card tables and each table would play a different game. Then when the art came together, I – there is that word again – thought it would be fun to have it in the Queen of Hearts castle with the card army helping and hindering progress. Then as I began working on it yesterday, God showed me a bunch of toothy sharks literally being the dealers for this game. LOL. And so, it is now located in an underwater “Card Shark Casino”. And the whole thing is coming together perfectly – of course.

There’s a lot of other stuff going on, but that’s for the next blog. Till then, God bless. And thanks for reading!