While reviewing CNN Money’s top iPhone applications, I stumbled upon XMG Studio Inc.’s Pandemica.  For only $2.99, a virtual world can be blended with the real world as seen through your iPhone’s camera.  It is called Augmented Virtual Reality (AVR).  In this game, the player hunts “enemy pathogens threatening to take over the world”.  They appear on the phone’s screen overlaid with features of your current location.  While holding the phone in one hand and unleashing weaponry with the other, a successful player will scan the floor, the ceiling, and even the area behind him for threats.

Sounds like a typical day at the office to me!  Every day seems to offer new and hidden challenges.  Have you ever overheard employees jockeying for status or position, been betrayed by an associate, or abandoned during a difficult effort?  We all have our own version of ‘enemy pathogens’ or disappointments.  But these things also happened to Jesus, too.  Consider the how Jesus responded the night of the Last Supper while disappointments mounted (Luke 22):

1. The disciples argued about “which of them was considered to be greatest,” apparently forgetting about the King of Kings (who happened to be sitting in the same room).
   
2. Eleven confused disciples contemplated the betrayer’s identity, not knowing the chief priests already paid Judas to identify Jesus with a kiss in order to guarantee His arrest.
   
3. Jesus went to the Mount of Olives and asked the disciples to pray.  “A stone’s throw beyond them” and in complete anguish about His impending death, Jesus begged “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”  When He returned to disciples, He found them sleeping rather than praying.

Even though the events of that long night were part of the salvation story, it makes you think about how you might respond.  Indeed, each workplace presents its very own and sometimes surprising disappointments, but as Christ-followers we are to respond with compassion and patience rather than frustration and anger.  The next day, Christ ultimately watched the same men who nailed Him to the cross also gamble for the clothes they stripped from Him.  In unbelievable and unconditional love, He spoke of all of us when He said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”  (Luke 23:34) 

In the Pandemica iPhone game, you can destroy threats, but run the risk of being trapped in the resulting ‘goo’.   Your character can only to be freed by shaking your phone.  But as the beloved of Christ, we are freed from our sin (and disappointments) through the grace of His patience, compassion, and unconditional love.  When we accept these gifts, we shake free from the entrapments of others’ behavior, even at the office.