Success Kid and Counting Our Blessings

Success Kid was one of the first memes I found, and is still one of my personal favorites. Originally a picture of a boy at the beach with a fist full of sand, he's now one of the more positive memes that you'll find. He's usually paired with either a positive event or a positive outcome to a situation that stereotypically has a negative one. The key is that the situations are generally trivial, and that is where the connection is made to my point for this post.

Most of you are probably familiar with the concept of counting your blessings. It means taking a moment to appreciate the little things in life that are good for us. People tend to be able to focus on minor disappointments and difficulties for extended amounts of time, but the small moments of joy and kindness are so quickly brushed aside and forgotten. Let's see if Success Kid can help change our perspective to one more pleasing to God, and better for ourselves too.

A Child's Point of View Means Looking Up

Success Kid, and many children, have a way of looking at things objectively. They see how something is affecting them now and then moving on when it stops. Without the weight of concerns for the future, children have a perspective that allows them to stop worrying about something when it's no longer an issue.

Matthew 18:3
Then he said, "I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven.

How many times do we look back on a situation only to realize that it wasn't worth all the worry? Kids have a way of switching back to a positive outlook on life, accepting happiness for what it is when it arrives. They don't like pain any more than adults do, but they also don't dwell on it when that pain is removed. The proof of this is in how a kiss on a scratch can make them feel better. Success Kid is able to keep difficulties in perspective, and be thankful that trouble is past rather than dwell on things.

Find the Silver Lining

It's not just after the fact that we can follow the example of Success Kid. He's also able to find the positive in the middle of bad situations. Focusing on the good during the bad can have a long-lasting affect on our permanent outlook, including how receptive we are to God's will.

1 Thessalonians 5:18
18 Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.

You may want to read that again. Notice how it doesn't say be thankful when God is doing tons of nice things for you? It says to be thankful in ALL circumstances. "But you don't know what I have to deal with!", you might say. Or "God isn't fair to me, I deserve better than this!". I wish I had some proof somehow that God loves and cares for us...

1 Chronicles 16:34
Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.

Zephaniah 3:17
The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.

Psalm 86:15
But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

Oh, well there you go. Thanks God! The Bible is full of affirmations that with God, we can handle it, no matter what it is. Even when our vision gets clouded by negativity and hard times, God is still blessing us. Find those blessings, and focus on them. It will pull you through the rough spots. But how can we do that when it seems like things just never go our way?

Focus on the Little Things

Psalm 103
A psalm of David.
1 Let all that I am praise the LORD; with my whole heart, I will praise his holy name.2 Let all that I am praise the LORD; may I never forget the good things he does for me.3 He forgives all my sins and heals all my diseases.4 He redeems me from death and crowns me with love and tender mercies.5 He fills my life with good things. My youth is renewed like the eagle’s!6 The LORD gives righteousness and justice to all who are treated unfairly

Nice weather when you have outdoor plans. A sudden hug from a child. A stranger letting you over on the highway. Clothes. Access to the Internet. Do you thank God for these things, or do you just expect them? It will be next to impossible to be thankful and have a good attitude when things get difficult if we don't do it when things are normal. I wonder if we could each think of ten blessings to be thankful for before we even leave our bedrooms in the morning.

Let's try a little exercise. Think of an everyday occurrence that would normally just ruin your day... Got one? Mine's the power going out, and no copying. It happens way too often, even on sunny days with no wind. Now, turn it around to the opposite event. In my case, that means having electricity. Now, since we get angry and cry "Why me, God? Why me?" for the bad version, do you give thanks and praise to God for the good one? I'll admit I don't. The simple fact is that if we feel God is worthy of our gripes, we need to make sure he get's our thanks too.

Psalm 100:4
Enter His gates with thanksgiving, And His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him; bless His name.

Being Generous With Stuff That's Not Ours Anyway

2 Corinthians 9:10-11
Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

Just one more little bit here. Basically the Bible tells us that everything we have is by the grace of God, so what you think is your stuff, is really only yours on borrowed time. We're lucky that God cares enough to provide that 198,000 mile car that leaks oil. If it gets you to church on Sunday then it's more valuable than the brand new Lexus sitting in the garage of a guy who's never going to answer when Christ calls him. See, when we use what we have to bring ourselves closer to God, it's value increases tremendously, and one of the best ways to do that is through generosity. If we are generous with our time, money, and other resources, and make sure people know where those resources really come from, those blessings that selfishness causes us to miss will suddenly become crystal clear. It's very tough to be angry when you can see and feel God's blessings coming down.

Colossians 3:17
And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

So, Success Kid is successful because he stays focused on God and a righteous attitude. Sure he'll slip up every once in a while, but those times only serve to highlight the good. I'll leave you with a couple more that I just like. God Bless and thanks as always for reading.

SNES Timeline - Part 4: Enter the RPGs

Finally in May things are starting to pick up... a little. Three games are released in May alone, along with another in June. And three of the four are RPGs, which haven't been seen yet on the SNES aside from some light RPG elements in ActRaiser. None of them are classics by any means, and they were all soon to be outdone in July, but at least it was something for some deeper game-play. Oh, and in case someone has wandered here that doesn't know, RPG stands for Role-Playing Game, and basically means a game where you play a character in a story and gain levels, skills, and equipment as the game progresses. But let's not get ahead of ourselves, there's a baseball game to cover first.

Super Bases Loaded - It's a Baseball Game...

Genre: Baseball
Developer: TOSE
Publisher: Jaleco
Released:
5/17/1991 (JP)
Sep. 1991 (US)

The Bases Loaded series was fairly popular on the NES, so it's no surprise that it made the graphical leap to the Super Nintendo. What made the series stand out was the unique perspective from behind the pitcher's mound rather than behind the plate. It really did do a good job of making the game seem more like a televised game than other baseball games. The graphics are decent on the pitching/batting screen, but the field screen is pretty bland. There's also no official license so the teams are generic. There's also not a season mode. You just keep playing more difficult teams and are rated after each game, with the goal being a perfect rating on a level five team. It's a pretty mediocre game but then again I've never personally been much of a sports video game fan.

Game info and shopping options:

My Grade: B
Worth Playing: No.

Drakkhen - Gesundheit

Genre: Role-Playing
Developer: Kemco
Publisher:
Kemco (JP)
Seika Corp (US)
Released:
5/24/1991 (JP)
Sep. 1991 (US)

Drakkhen is an RPG with a mix of first person exploration with 3rd person 2D combat and dungeons. Basically you explore a very bland, but "3D" world and when you stop to do anything your party of four D&D style characters comes out onto the field. The gist of the story is that the world is about to be taken over by these dragon people, the titular Drakkhen, and your party is sent to their island to try and stop the invasion before it starts. You only control one character at a time but the real-time combat is fairly simple so there's not much strategizing to be done while the computer controls your other characters. It's a fairly standard RPG. I actually think I'd have liked it better with a more traditional overworld instead of the bland, fake 3D landscape. The interior sections were the highlight and actually offered some pretty fun moments and a decent amount of loot.

Game info and shopping options:

My Grade: C+
Worth Playing: No.

GD Leen - I Found the Attack Command!

Genre: Role-Playing
Developer:
Jorudan
Publisher:
Seta (JP)
Released:
5/28/1991 (JP)

It was bound to happen, a JRPG that isn't translated and therefore unplayable to my English as an only language self aside from the few Spanish words I can remember from high school. Everything in this game is buried in menus. I was able to start a game, and there are some decent cut scene screens, with the world being a mix of fantasy and sci-fi, similar to a Phantasy Star game. Fights are Dragon Quest style with a black background and no view of your character. There seems to be a decent amount of options in combat, and the enemies were nicely detailed as well. I looked into what the storyline is and it's apparently about a space ship captain who crash lands on a strange planet, and meets a fairy who lets him know that said planet is in danger. I'm not sure why it wasn't localized, probably because there wasn't any interest in competing directly with Final Fantasy. If a fan translation was ever done I would revisit it to check out the story though. On a side note I think the box art is some of the best so far. If it had come out in the US it would probably have just been a planet with a sword behind it or something like that.

More game info:

My Grade: N/A
Worth Playing: I wish I knew.

Ys III: Wanderers from Ys - Enter Cave, Defeat 1st Worm, Attack 2nd Worm, Game Over

Genre: Action RPG
Developer:
Nihon Falcom
Publisher:
Tonkin House (JP)
American Sammy (US)
Released:
6/21/1991 (JP)
Jan. 1992 (US)

Well hello, grindfest! This game is quite different from other Ys titles in that it's a side scrolling action RPG, much like Zelda II. Also much like it's inspiration, it's a very difficult game. Monsters in the first area can take you in a couple hits even after a few level ups. Bosses can be extremely difficult even after that. Overall though it's not a bad early effort, and there is a bit of exploration involved in the dungeons. You have a couple of different attacks with your sword, and instead of magic you can equip rings for different effects. It's not a bad game to try out if you want to play an old school action RPG, although I'm pretty sure this game has been remade at least once in one of the recent Ys collections.

Game info and shopping options:

My Grade: B
Worth Playing: If you're an action RPG fan looking for a challenge.

Things will really start looking up in the next month of the SNES' life cycle. Eight games released in July of 1991, including one of my favorite games of all time. We'll get started on them soon. God bless and thanks for reading.