Gotta Catch'em All!

Alright, so unless you've been hiding under a rock for the past several weeks or are still boycotting all forms of public and social media, you can't help but have noticed the newest craze that is Pokemon Go.

This game is played on a mobile platform and is touted as one of this first successful "augmented reality" games of its kind. Using the GPS and clock functions on a mobile device, you are able to hunt for Pokemon and capture a picture of them a la the turn-of-the-century video game Pokemon Snap.

This game app reveals a world of treasure-seeking fun that is hidden from the "naked eye", a realm of amazingly photogenic creatures all around us. We have seen numerous posts of people having a lot of fun playing in this world within a world. We have also seen many stories of the negative side of the game. These include everything from digital privacy issues, to people getting pulled over by police for hunting Pokemon and driving, to a personal story of an acquaintance of mine, whose co-worker was trying to "catch'em all" while at the office and tripped over him and broke his wrist.

This reminds me that there is much more to the world we live in than meets the eye. Just like the magical augmented reality of Pokemon Go, there is an entire spiritual world all around us existing in a dimension that we cannot fully comprehend. The Bible tells us a bit about this world in Ephesians Chapter 6:12-13

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."

There is a spiritual battle going on all around us. This verse gives us a sort of spiritual hierarchy. "Principality" is the idea of an angelic-type ruler. "Powers" carries the connotation of exercising authority over our liberty and our minds. "Rulers of darkness" comes from a Greek word meaning lord of this world or prince of this age, referring to the Devil and his cohorts, along with spiritual wickedness and depravity that comes from high places, i.e. the heavens.

These are our adversaries. They are cunning and prefer to remain hidden, so they can do their evil deeds under the cover of darkness and corrupt God's creation. However, just as we are able through the use of technology to catch a glimpse of the hidden Pokemon, God has also given us a lens through which the spiritual world is revealed to us. That lens is His Word, the Bible in written form, and Jesus in the flesh. Through this we learn of our origins, our history, our spiritual condition, our redemption, our destination.

So let's get into our Bibles! There are 66 books just waiting for you to catch'em all!

#pokemongo #spiritualbattle #spiritualwarfare #angels