{"id":504,"date":"2006-06-08T11:50:38","date_gmt":"2006-06-08T11:50:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2006\/06\/jesus_and_chuck.shtml"},"modified":"2021-05-29T02:46:45","modified_gmt":"2021-05-29T02:46:45","slug":"jesus_and_chuck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2006\/06\/jesus_and_chuck.shtml","title":{"rendered":"Jesus and Chuck-E-Cheese"},"content":{"rendered":"

This was inspired by a comment from our minister in his midweek lesson a couple of Wednesdays ago.<\/em>
\nIf you have small children, or any children (’cause they were small once), you are likely familiar with an establishment called Chuck E Cheese<\/a>. If not, perhaps you know of similar establishments with cartoon characters, video games, a play gym and greasy pizza. Sugar, pizza and caffeine fueled chaos.
\nAs adults, we look at the inside of a Chuck E Cheese and shake our heads a little. Sure, the kids love it, but they come to see a lame mechanical stage show with large shaking, plastic rodent, hug a strange teenager in a mouse suit, eat mediocre pizza and pay pointless games for tickets they can trade for worthless trinkets that will be broken or lost before they get home. It’s all pretty worthless, yet the kids run around in a zealous joy, loving every minute of it. They think it’s the best thing ever<\/em>, and they will wail if they find themselves short of tickets to get the chrome plated whistle or the blow pop that we could buy at Wal-Mart for 50 cents.
\nWe know, despite their passion now, it all means nothing and they’ll even forget about it in a little while.
\nI suspect that God looks down at us and our world and shakes his head too. Sure, we love life, but we run around in a silly kind of stage show with players in poor disguises, trying to hide who they are behind masks of contentment and satisfaction, we seek approval from men who are as fake and flawed as we are and power over others to puff ourselves up and convince ourselves that we’re not fake and flawed ourselves. We run in circles or on treadmills and lift heavy objects for no reason but to make our decaying physique last a few more short years. And we play silly games to acquire little pieces of paper that we can trade for trinkets like houses, cars and HDTV that begin to fall apart as soon as we acquire them. It’s all pretty worthless, yet we run around in a zealous joy, loving every minute of it, or at least we think we do. We think it’s the best thing ever<\/em>, and we wail if we find ourselves short of little pieces of paper to get the 62″ wide screen that will be obsolete months after we get it home.
\nGod knows, despite all of our passion for this life now, it all means nothing and we’ll even forget about it all in a little while.
\nKids eventually grow up and see Chuck E Cheese for what it is. As Christians, we ought to be mature to see this life for what it is as well. Temporary, a shadow of eternity, a blip.
\nThe question is, do we? We don’t act like it. We spend most of our energy chasing the things of the world rather than the things of heaven. If God would pull back the curtain to the spiritual reality of the world around us, how would things be different? Perhaps that’s why God allows things like cancer, AIDS, earthquakes, job losses, accidents, hurricanes, disease and tragedy. These shocks put this world in perspective, allowing us – forcing<\/em> us – to peek under the curtain.
\nI’m convinced that Satan spends most of his time throwing the trinkets and concerns of the world in our face, keeping us busy acquiring them or maintaining them so we won’t notice God, quietly working in the shadows, waiting for us to leave the Chuck-E-Cheese games and join him in the work that matters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This was inspired by a comment from our minister in his midweek lesson a couple of Wednesdays ago. If you have small children, or any children (’cause they were smallRead More Jesus and Chuck-E-Cheese<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nJesus and Chuck-E-Cheese - salguod.net<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2006\/06\/jesus_and_chuck.shtml\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jesus and Chuck-E-Cheese - salguod.net\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This was inspired by a comment from our minister in his midweek lesson a couple of Wednesdays ago. 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It feels like there's some profound truth in there that's eluding me, but maybe it's simply this: Jesus changes everything. Everything. We were once enslaved children, now free men. Once slaves, now sons and heirs. Once under law,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Quiet Time Journal"","block_context":{"text":"Quiet Time Journal","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/quiet-time-journal"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":652,"url":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2007\/04\/ezekiel_chapter_13.shtml","url_meta":{"origin":504,"position":1},"title":"Ezekiel – Chapter 15","author":"Doug Schaefer","date":"April 4, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"A very short chapter. He compares Israel to the wood of a vine. Even when whole, that wood is not good for anything. No one makes anything from vine wood. How much more worthless is it after being consumed by fire? 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Here we go: Four Jobs I've Had Pizza Delivery (High School and College) Paper Boy (High School & as a second job between about 6-8 years ago) Hotel Doorman and Valet (college) Injection Mold Designer\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Goofiness"","block_context":{"text":"Goofiness","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/goofiness"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":379,"url":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2005\/09\/speechless.shtml","url_meta":{"origin":504,"position":3},"title":"[Speechless]","author":"Doug Schaefer","date":"September 1, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"I honestly don't know what to say. I've finally got my eye's off of the trivial issues with my church organization to follow the tragedy that is the Katrina devastation. Wow. The chaos and anarchy of the Superdome. Thousands living like animals in the convention center. Dead lying in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Just Like Jesus"","block_context":{"text":"Just Like Jesus","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/just-like-jesus"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":636,"url":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2007\/03\/ezekiel_chapter_6.shtml","url_meta":{"origin":504,"position":4},"title":"Ezekiel – Chapter 7","author":"Doug Schaefer","date":"March 14, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Ezekiel 7:4 - \"Then you will know that I am the Lord.\" God had tried over the years through the evidence of creation, the blessings of being His people and the history of the nation and God's interaction with Abraham, Moses, David, etc to show them that he was God.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Quiet Time Journal"","block_context":{"text":"Quiet Time Journal","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/quiet-time-journal"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":116,"url":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2004\/03\/wisconsin_trip.shtml","url_meta":{"origin":504,"position":5},"title":"Wisconsin Trip","author":"Doug Schaefer","date":"March 31, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, we're back and we had a great trip. 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