Final Fantasy VI is one of my favorite video games of all time. People will often cite its successor as the greatest Final Fantasy game, but those people are wrong. Square first released the game as Final Fantasy III in North America for the Super Nintendo. I didn’t own an SNES, but I spent hours playing the game at my friend’s house. Since then I’ve replayed it on my Game Boy Advance and am always tempted to get it for my iPhone.
There were plenty of amazing spells to cast in Final Fantasy VI, however, haste was not one of them. Haste sped up a character’s timer, allowing him or her to take his or her turn more quickly. I never cast haste on my characters; why not just do damage to an enemy?
In life, though, I would cast a haste spell at every opportunity. I’ve written quite a bit about my impatience, which most clearly shows itself while standing in line at Costco. I love Costco even though the checkout usually leaves me shaking my fist at the heavens and silently cursing my fellow patrons, especially those who write checks.
Ironically enough, I came across a quote that gave me pause in my thoughts about haste.
Sin lies in Adam’s haste, and my lust for possession is stronger than my true love for him (God). Wait! Oh, the anguish of that “wait,” the emptiness of that absence. But then, little by little, I began to understand, as never before, that he was present in the emptiness, in the waiting. – Carlo Carretto
Adam’s sin was in haste, in wanting something before he was ready. Perhaps there was a time when God would have allowed Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, but they weren’t willing to wait. They wanted to cast a haste spell and get beyond the feeling of emptiness in the midst of waiting.
As Carretto wrote, though, God is present in the waiting; waiting isn’t empty because God is there with us. Waiting is a natural part of life; there are rhythms of waiting all around us.
We have to wait for seeds to bear fruit.
We have to wait for the sun to come up.
We have to wait nine months for children to be born.
Waiting is normal and God wants to meet us in the waiting; he wants to make the most of that time.
While I sometimes wished Alycia’s pregnancy had been shorter, I wouldn’t trade those nine months for anything. They helped prepare us to be parents and drew us closer together as husband and wife.
We can’t allow ourselves to fall into the same temptation as Adam and Eve, trying to bypass seasons of waiting in our haste. God will bring us all of the good things he has promised, but he’ll do it in his perfect timing. We can’t cast a haste spell and try to speed things up; in doing so we miss out on what God wants to show us and could potentially fall into sin.
So just like haste is a waste of a spell in Final Fantasy VI, it’s also a waste of the time God has given us to draw near him in waiting.
What makes you want to be hasty?
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