In Roxley’s Radlands, the event card, Bombardment, is played for a whopping four water and is placed all the way down on the third space in the event track. That means it will be three whole turns before the event triggers. But when it does, watch out! This legendary event card damages all your opponent’s camps they have and allows you to draw a card for each destroyed camp they have on their side of the field. The card’s strength comes in its unique ability to hit every camp all at once. Its weakness is that it’s a heavy cost of resources of four water and your opponent has three turns to prepare for it. The thing about event cards in Radlands is that there is no way to stop them. The person, Doomsayer, can push events back one space when played, but as long as the game keeps progressing, event cards eventually trigger, and you just have to deal with them.
Life is Unfair
Just like events, life has hard circumstances that you have to deal with. Sometimes these hard circumstances are spread out across many years, sometimes it feels like they are a daily occurrence. The constant is this – life is unfair at times. The question we have to ask ourselves is, how are we going to let the hard circumstances of life shape our faith and character. No matter how we deal with them, growth happens. We either grow in bitterness and resentment by becoming mean to others and self-centered. Or are we going to grow in depth of our character and love for others?
My Bombardment
2022 was a bombardment for me. In 2021, my dad was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. After several months of radiation and chemo, my dad was scheduled to have the cancer removed from his esophagus. The surgeon called me 20 minutes into the operation to break the news to me that dad’s cancer had spread. He could not operate. Dad continued treatment, but unfortunately the treatments were too much on his body. While in Kentucky for graduation at Asbury Seminary, I received a phone call from my stepmom that something was wrong with dad. He could not speak well and was losing strength on one side of his body. Dad had several mini strokes that put him in the hospital. About a week after being omitted, my dad passed away. The bombardment for me was a phone call from my dad that he had cancer, a phone call from the surgeon that his cancer had spread, and a phone call from my stepmom that my dad had passed.
Job’s Bombardment
In the Old Testament, you run into a man named Job. Job experiences a bombardment of bad news from a messenger. First his livestock, then his home, then his family inside the home are all destroyed, and his health deteriorates with boils all over his body. Job is devastated and rightfully so. Job was a righteous man. He woke up every morning to pray for God’s mercy in his and his family’s lives. One could and should ask, if God loved Job, and Job was a righteous man, then why did God allow him to suffer? But one thing we must remember is this – life is unfair, God is fair, do not get the two mixed up. Life is unfair because humankind flipped God off and decided to rebel against God. God respected our free will and partially stepped back, then chaos ensued. God is fair because he respects our free will and will not manipulate or coerce us to love him. Love must be a free choice in order for it to be love. So what does Job do? Well, he shaves his head, puts on a sackcloth, pours ashes on his head as a sign of deep grief and mourning. What comes out of his grief, is what can give us hope in the bombardments of our life as well.
In the midst of Job’s grief, his friends come and sit with him and say nothing. Good job friends! Sometimes we just need people to sit with us in pain. What came next out of Job’s mouth is so profound, so hopeful, that it can only come from a man that has God’s Spirit in him helping him wrestle with devastation. Job says:
“The Lord gives, the Lord takes; blessed be the name of the Lord.”Job 1:21
Hope in the Bombardment
Now maybe you have heard others try to comfort people that are mourning with those words – the Lord gives, the Lord takes away. But we must be careful not to do that. For the Scripture does not say these words came from Job’s friends, but from Job himself. Therefore, out of Job’s bombardment, came not despair, but hope. Hope that God is still God and that He is for Job and with Job during this devastation. I am a pastor of a church. If myself and an atheist went to visit a child with terminal cancer, the atheist can only say – “I’m sorry life dealt you a bad hand, but this is all you get.” But I can go to the child with the hope of heaven. I can say that yes, this life is unfair, but this life is not all there is.
There was a story of a follower of Christ that was in his wife’s funeral procession with his two little girls in the back seat. While stopped, a large 18-wheeler stopped beside them, covering the sun and putting a large shadow over the man and daughter’s car. The father looked at his rearview mirror and asked the girls – “girls, which would you rather get hit by, the truck or the shadow?” The girls said “the shadow”. The father asked why. The girls said “because the shadow does not hurt and does not last forever”. America sees death as the worst thing that can happen to a person. The Bible, however, depicts death as a shadow. Something that is dark, but something that does not last forever for those that put their faith in Jesus.
Jesus is the Hope
Having lost my mom, dad, and brother, I feel I can relate to Job a bit. Having put my trust and faith in Jesus, I can also say – the Lord gives, the Lord takes, blessed be the name of the Lord. I have a beautiful wife, a healthy 19 month-old son, and one on the way. I have a church family that loves me and friends that are there for me. Despite the bombardment of life, I can say, God has blessed me; blessed be the name of the Lord. I hope you check Jesus out for yourself in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. See if the evidence of his life, teachings, death, and resurrection point to a reliable person. If so, put your faith in him and begin to live life to the fullest by loving and serving God and others. God bless you as you make that most important decision.
