Patience or Pwn

The other day both my children had friends over to play after school.  About an hour into the playing all four kids ended up in the family room, sitting on the couch, playing WII.  As I sat at the computer in the same room I listened to the verbiage they used to narrate the game they were playing.  The word that kept coming out was pone (pronounced with a long o sound), also written as pwn.  Have you heard this word?  The kids were all yelling, "I'm going to pwn you!" and "That was total pwnage."  It's not the first time I have heard it and my kids can define it, but I was still curious.  It is the craziest word, so how is a mom to research such a thing?  Google!

On one website, called urbandictionary.com (because, of course, it is not a real word), I found the following definition and explanation:
Pwn (pon), verb
1. An act of dominating an opponent
2. Great, ingenious; applied to methods and objects
Originally dates back to the days of WarCraft, when a map designer misspelled 'own' as 'pwn'.  What was originally supposed to be 'player has been owned' was 'player has been pwned'.
You thought I had a typo in the title didn't you?  So, if you pwn someone or something, you 'own' them, you show no mercy, you use all the tools at your disposal to crush them, by owning them you have completely dominated them and they lose themselves and all their resources.  Pwning is the opposite of patience.

This week in my daily ready, I came across one of my favorite scriptures.  In Micah 6:8 it says, "He has showed you, O man, what is good.  And what does the Lord require of you?  To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."  Now, as Emma was being her typical calm, sweet, understated self, sitting on the couch playing WII and screaming, "I totally pwned you!", it made me think about how Jesus would act if he was playing Mario cart with his friend.

Technology doesn't bother me so much, we have good rules in place, and the word pwn itself doesn't really bother me because I know there were weird words that I used growing up, however, it does make me giggle that the word was created out of a typo.  I really wasn't bothered by any of it, but it provided a striking example of how our society, behaviors, games and activities teach us the exact opposite of patience and the words of Micah 6:8.  We are to emulate Jesus as his disciples and believers but sometimes everything around us just wants to pwn us and our patience, mercy and humility is constantly at risk.  But we have Jesus.

Jesus came not to own us but to abide in us.  To equip us to make different choices that would reflect his light and love and not the aggression and anger that is found in the world.  But our abiding is challenged when family fights, or when the other team yells insults, or when a friend hurts our feelings.  Situations are hard for us to understand sometimes.  In those moments it is hard to understand patience, it is hard to react in calm mercy layered in humility.  But it is in those precise moments that we understand the breadth and depth of God's patience and his patience with us.  When we are frustrated and don't understand why something happened is exactly when we need to reflect on the plan God has in place, how we fit in and how patient he has been with us.  In 2 Peter 3:9 it says, "The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness.  he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance."  He desires all to come to him, but until that happens, we do not know the context behind everyone's situation and reaction, but he does.  And if he can have patience in that moment with those people, and he knows from where they came and where they are going and every move they will make along the way, then shouldn't we trust in him and reflect his patience in kind?

We can't know what God's plans are, we can just follow him.  We can't own people or things that provide any lasting fulfillment, but we can act in the patience demonstrated by our God and draw our strength to do so from him.  "...being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience..."  Colossians 1:11  If he can be patient with us and just desire to abide in us and not own or dominate us, can't we do the same? 
"I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life."  1 Timothy 1:16

When the world wants to pwn us, how much could we change by acting with God's patience and mercy?

By His Grace