Getting Nudged: Capture the Flag (with Added Commentary)

Alma 7:19 - "For I perceive that ye are in the paths of righteousness ..."

I seem to talk about work a lot. Who knew that would be such an integral part of my life?

So, every week, one of the halls over here at Helaman put together an activity we call 'After Hours,' which can be anything from playing video games to holding a yoga night. The purpose of the event is to foster inter-hall relations among all the residents across the complex, and, of course, have lots of fun.

This past week was my crew's turn to organize and run one of these activities, and so we decided we were going to hold a massive capture the flag game. The seven of us thinkjousted the rules, nitpicking and nitpicking until we came up with what we thought was the perfect rule-set.

Of course, then we had to procure the supplies, seek out cones to mark the no-man's land, find suitable towels to act as flags, tweak the rules just a bit more, distribute glow sticks to the various teams, ensure the after-activity ice cream actually made it to the central building, and make sure everyone involved understood everything that was going down.

And then, with much pomp and splendor, everything began. The team captains, looped on a conference call on my phone, shouted for the teams to move, and the games began. For nearly an hour the teams battled, recruiting reinforcements as residents previously unaware of the event saw the goings-on and were drafted into the various teams via distributing glowsticks of the proper colors. People crossed over enemy lines and made their assaults, running and fleeing toward and away from where the flags had been deposited. Friendly insults and screams of defeat filled the air.

And then, it was all over.

Nobody had brought a single flag back to their respawn point.

Seeing as it's me, I thought to myself, What can I learn from this experience? What I pulled away from it was, simply, that no matter how much preparation you put into something, sometimes, things don't turn out the way you plan or even want. I can count many times in my life when my best-laid plans were dashed when the Lord had a different path for me to take, simply because he knew what I needed best. The point is, the Lord wants us to try. He wants us to put as much effort as we can to step and stay on the path we feel is best, and when we are doing all we can, even in consulting Him, he will step in and nudge us in the way we need to go. However, even that nudge is forfeit if we aren't trying.

And, of course, to drive that illustration home, the students who came back to the central building for ice cream, hot, sweaty, and dirty, expressed just how much fun they had to me and the other members of the crew. They, more than anything else, were the shining examples of finding joy in the effort.

I wrote a commentary about this post on July 2, 2015. Click here to read!