When I said, “My feet are slipping,” your mercy, O Lord, continued to hold me up.
When I worried about many things, your assuring words soothed my soul.
Psalm 94:18-19
Tetris is one of the most popular video games of all time. Since it’s release in 1984, Tetris has been ported to every format and console that has come out. There is something so addicting about this game. The goal of Tetris is to put the different falling shapes in the right order while stacking them up to form complete lines which vanish. The premise is simple, put the puzzle pieces where they fit, keep up and don’t make any mistakes. This seems easy at first, but the speed begins to build and soon it seems that the pieces are dropping on the pile faster than you can manage. Once they pile to the top, the game ends.
Why bring up Tetris? I think this game is a great analogy for the stresses of life. Every day we try to manage our lives. We try to deal with the new experiences that come at us while maintaining the old. We work to put things where they belong and know the consequences for letting things pile up. Have you experienced this? Of course you have. It is part of the human experience to feel stress in life. What are we to do when the pieces pile up? Who are we to call when we drop a piece in the wrong place and now we suffer the consequences for it?
The scriptures often speak about stress and anxiety. Throughout the Old and New Testament, people are stressed out and unable to calm themselves. This broken world is too much for us to handle on our own. So, just like the psalmist in Psalm 94, we call out to the Lord. We look to our God to hold us up when the world becomes too much for us to handle. When we are worried, we cast our anxieties on God because he cares for us.
Dear God, sometimes we feel like our life is stacking up and the pieces aren’t falling in the right place. We know that we cannot make it in this life without you. Thank you for sending your Son to save us and be our comfort when things are stressful. Help us to remember that you love us and care for us. Amen.