Accomplishments and Achievements

(The poem I intended to post on Monday needed a bit more work, therefore it has been scheduled to Wednesday. In case you wondered what happened to it. 😉)

For me, it’s easy for a feeling of accomplishment to be an addiction that gets out of hand and turns into sin.

Finishing a level of Candy Crush and seeing the little girl cheering? Yup. I could play for HOURS. And having it on my iPod… now I see how easy it is to be addicted to a phone. I could carry the gaming addition wherever I went (that has WiFi).

Whenever there was a contest, I was waaaaaaaaay too focused on winning. I’d play for hours to win.

And this win led me to play for HOURS because I didn’t want to waste my prize. (Yes I took screenshots of my wins… I rediscovered them recently and cringed. I was THAT proud of my wins. 😅)

I had to offload all four games from the Candy Crush franchise from my iPod, and I may delete them completely soon.

After reading this post from my friend TR (Accomplishments Becoming An Idol), I realized just how deep this went. Accomplishments and achievements had a hold on me.

Accomplishment – level 13 on Memrise.

This achievement lost on Duolingo upset me more than it should have. I almost considered buying “plus” so I could fix it but… would it be worth it, just for that? The point was, I was learning Spanish. And I still am.

Progress is being made. If I miss a day, does it really matter? One day? Does the streak matter, or does the learning?

And when it comes to Candy Crush, I realized something…

When I stand before God, will this matter?

“God, I didn’t spend that much time with You and I’m sorry. I didn’t have a lot of free time.”

“What about all those hours playing games, child? You did have time.”

“…I was top of the leaderboard. That counts for something, right?”

Wrong.

Would He be proud of these achievements and accomplishments?

That’s probably a no.

Learning a new language has a point. Being able to speak to more of His children. But the games, even though they are so fun and addicting… weren’t worth the hours put into it.

I must admit, this achievement felt good. But I’m trying not to let it become an idol. I don’t use the website every day. On Duolingo, I have the streak freeze activated so if I do skip a day, I don’t lose my streak, but I’m also really enjoying the learning process there (they have Duolingo Stories which I really enjoy alongside their Spanish lessons), so I rarely skip a day. That’s why my streak is back into the 80s… 😅 I keep telling myself it’s not the numbers and if I lose this streak, I won’t be upset. It’s a struggle sometimes but:

Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1-2)

I don’t want to get trapped in the snares of accomplishments and achievements; I want to run the race and keep my eyes on Jesus, my Prize. He is worth it! ❤