Continuing the Quest

We got a new game for Christmas, "Shadows Over Camelot".  It's a cooperative board game that can be up to 8 players (if you get the expansion pack)... Knights of the Round Table.  In each game there could be at least one traitor (or two, if you get the expansion pack).  The knights go on "quests" to defeat enemies, to retrieve "Excalibur", to find the "Holy Grail" etc.  One of the hardest quests to win is "The Grail Quest" (and here I'm getting to the point of this blog post).   Each turn you must do an evil deed (placing a seige engine, drawing a black card...) before you perform a heroic action.  One of the black cards is called "Despair".  This card is placed at the Grail quest.  If the Grail quest is filled with despair cards, the grail is lost (and has all kinds of implications for the rest of the game).  To win the Grail quest you place Grail cards.  The interesting thing in this game is watching the Grail quest go back and forth from Despair to Hope depending on how many cards are out.  It is true that as more despair cards are placed the more all of us "knights" lose hope. 

Hopelessness (i.e. Despair) is a dangerous thing.  It can cause you to just give up all together and quit the game.

And here's what I getting at.  Yesterday was one of hope.  It's as if, like in the game,  4 Grail cards were placed and we sensed the Grail (the hope for restoration) nearly within our grasp.  Today, this morning... Someone must have placed "Despair" cards while I was sleeping.   But I am persevering in hope: "Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.  And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.  Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;  perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us."  (Romans 5:1-5)

So, there.  I am placing another "Grail card" and continuing my quest.  I will not be defeated by the enemy of despair.