It's just a game, right???????

I have found that there are numerous types of games to play on the computer, especially on Facebook. Games of strategy, logic and skill. There are games like Scramble, Frarkle, Bejeweled Blitz, Fashion Wars, Mafia Wars, Farmville, Yoville and my personal favorite, Farm Town.

I enjoy games that make you feel apart of what's going on. In Farm Town, you maintain a farm. The typical plant, harvest and plow. Yet, you can help someone else on their farm. All you do is go to the market place and wait to be hired. You get paid to do the work, and the farmer makes more for his crop. There are I believe 34 levels to this game and there are lots of things to buy to maintain and upgrade your farm. If you need more money for your dreams of grandeur, then you go work for someone else.

This brings me to my blog. Yesterday, while on Farm Town, I went to the market place to see if I could make some more money. I usually stand off to the side and let the group know that I am ready and willing to do any type of work. I find begging usually doesn't pay off. Not that I've done it mind you, but I've seen many others do it. Anyway, I was hired to help harvest a cabbage crop...that's all that was growing on this farm...lots and lots of cabbage. While working, the owner hired more help and at one point we were almost on top of each other. The next thing I know, one of the works complained that the owner hired way too many workers and then would not hire us to plow what we had just harvested. Oh my gosh!!!!! Get a grip people, it's just a game!!!

It reminded me of two things...1) the job market, or lack there of it, today. People need work, but for some, instead of being grateful for any work, they complain about either the pay or the job not being big enough. 2) It reminded me of the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard Matthew 20: 1-16.

"For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them 'you also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.; So they went.

He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, 'Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?'

'Because no one has hired us,' they answered.

He said to them, 'You also go and work in my vineyard.'

When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, 'Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.

The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 'These men who were hired last worked only one hour,' they said,'and you have made them equal to us who have born the burden of the work and the heat of the day.'

But he answered one of them, 'Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?'

"So the last will be first, and the first will be last."

So. I guess that Farm Town imitates life. Even in a game, times get rough and jobs are hard to come by. Therefore, we ought to remember, whether in real life or in a game, to be grateful for whatever work comes our way.