If you’ve ever played Dark Souls, there’s a good chance you’ve experienced that special kind of frustration that comes from spending an hour fighting the same boss, finally getting it down to a sliver of health, and then making one stupid mistake that sends you right back to the bonfire. Perhaps you got greedy and tried to squeeze in one more attack when you should have backed away. Maybe you rolled in the wrong direction. Or you may have been doing everything right until the camera decided that the real enemy wasn’t the giant monster trying to kill you, but your ability to see what was happening.
Whatever the reason, you’re dead. Again.
And now you have to make a decision. You can put down the controller, decide you’ve had enough of this nonsense, and go play something that doesn’t seem personally offended by your continued existence. Or you can take a minute, figure out what went wrong, and try again. If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably done a little of both, sometimes within the same five minutes.
That’s Dark Souls, and it’s one of the reasons FromSoftware’s 2011 masterpiece has remained so influential. The game is difficult, sometimes brutally so, but the difficulty isn’t simply there to punish you. It’s part of how the game teaches you to play. You learn enemy patterns, discover shortcuts, improve your equipment, and gradually become better at surviving a world that initially seems determined to kill you at every opportunity. And along the way, you become very familiar with one of the most important sights in the entire game: a small bonfire burning in the darkness.
This week on The Sunday Sermon, we’re finishing our October journey through horror gaming with a trip to Lordran, where the world is slowly dying, nearly everyone you meet has some kind of terrible problem, and even the people who seem friendly might eventually lose their minds and try to kill you. After spending the past few weeks exploring forbidden knowledge in Bloodborne, guilt and forgiveness in Silent Hill 2, and freedom from sin in Resident Evil 4, I thought it would be fitting to end the month with a game about perseverance, hope, and the importance of finding somewhere to rest when life keeps knocking you down.
The world of Dark Souls is approaching the end of the Age of Fire. The First Flame, whose appearance brought disparity into a world that had previously existed in a very different state, is fading, and the gods and other inhabitants of Lordran are struggling with what that means for their future. Meanwhile, the Undead Curse has appeared among humanity, marking people with the Darksign and causing them to return after death. Many of the Undead eventually become Hollows, losing their sense of self and wandering the world as mindless shells of the people they once were.
But there’s something important about hollowing that I think makes Dark Souls particularly interesting. Your character doesn’t permanently lose their mind simply because you’ve died a certain number of times. You can die hundreds of times and still continue your journey. The game’s story suggests that losing one’s purpose and the will to carry on plays a major role in what happens to the Undead who become completely Hollow. Throughout Lordran, you encounter people who have been struggling for who knows how long, holding on to whatever reason they have left to keep going. Some manage to endure, while others eventually lose their purpose and themselves along with it.
And that brings me to James 1:2–4.
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
Now, I don’t know about you, but when I’m having a particularly miserable day, being told to consider it pure joy isn’t necessarily what I want to hear. When things are going wrong, when you’ve been dealing with the same problem for weeks or months, or when life seems determined to throw another obstacle in your path just as you’ve recovered from the last one, joy probably isn’t the first emotion that comes to mind.
But James isn’t telling Christians that suffering is pleasant or that we’re supposed to enjoy every terrible thing that happens to us. He’s writing to believers facing trials and encouraging them to understand that their faith can grow through those experiences. The testing of faith produces perseverance, and perseverance, when allowed to do its work, helps develop spiritual maturity. He’s not promising that every problem will disappear if we just endure it long enough. He’s explaining that difficult circumstances don’t have to be meaningless, even when we can’t see anything good coming from them at the time.
And I think that’s something Dark Souls illustrates surprisingly well.
When you die in Dark Souls, you return to the last bonfire you rested at, and most of the ordinary enemies you’ve defeated return as well. The souls and humanity you were carrying are left behind in a bloodstain, and you have one opportunity to recover them. If you die again before reaching that bloodstain, they’re lost. It’s a system that can be incredibly frustrating, especially when you’ve spent a long time collecting souls and suddenly find yourself staring at an empty counter because you misjudged a jump or got ambushed by an enemy you thought you’d already dealt with.
But even when you lose those souls, you haven’t necessarily lost everything. You still know where that enemy was hiding. You remember which attacks you need to avoid. You might have discovered a shortcut or picked up an item that remains in your inventory. And perhaps most importantly, you’ve learned something about how to approach the next attempt. The game doesn’t guarantee that you’ll succeed simply because you’ve failed enough times, but it gives you opportunities to learn from those failures and approach the same challenges with a little more understanding.
That’s where I think James’s words about perseverance become meaningful. He’s not describing somebody who never struggles, never gets discouraged, or never wishes things were easier. He’s describing a faith that continues to develop through testing. Sometimes we learn patience because we’ve been forced to wait longer than we wanted. Sometimes we learn humility because we discover that we aren’t nearly as capable of controlling everything as we thought. And sometimes we learn to trust God because we’ve reached the point where our own strength and understanding simply aren’t enough.
Which brings me back to those bonfires.
Throughout Lordran, bonfires serve as checkpoints and places of recovery. Resting at one restores your health, replenishes your Estus Flask and allows you to spend souls to improve your character. It also causes most ordinary enemies to return, so resting doesn’t magically solve all your problems. The dangers waiting beyond the fire are still there, and some bonfires can even become unusable under certain circumstances. But for a little while, you can stop fighting, recover from whatever nearly killed you, and prepare yourself for the next part of the journey.
A small fire burning in a world that’s slowly falling apart, offering a place to rest before you have to step back into the darkness. You haven’t defeated every enemy or solved the problems threatening Lordran. You haven’t even necessarily made it very far since the last time you sat beside that same fire. But you’re still here, and for the moment, you have somewhere to recover.
I think we sometimes forget how important that is in our own lives.
We live in a world that seems to admire people who never stop working, never admit they’re tired, and somehow manage to keep pushing forward no matter what happens. We tell ourselves that if we’re struggling, the answer must be to work harder, try harder, pray harder, or simply refuse to acknowledge how exhausted we’ve become. And sometimes we start treating rest as though it’s something we have to earn, a reward we’re only allowed to enjoy once we’ve accomplished everything we set out to do.
But that’s not really the picture Scripture gives us.
In Matthew 11:28, Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
I love that verse, especially when thinking about the bonfires in Dark Souls, because Jesus doesn’t tell the weary and burdened to come back once they’ve gotten themselves together. He doesn’t say to finish overcoming every obstacle first and then maybe they’ll deserve a little peace. He invites people who are already tired, already struggling, already carrying more than they know what to do with.
And the rest Christ offers goes much deeper than sitting down for a few minutes before returning to work. He’s speaking to people who need relief from burdens they cannot ultimately carry on their own, offering rest for their souls through a relationship with Him. It’s not a promise that following Christ will remove every difficult circumstance from our lives, but it is a reminder that we’re not expected to face those circumstances without Him.
There’s another verse in James that I think fits here, and it comes immediately after the passage about perseverance. James 1:5 says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.”
I think that’s an important detail that sometimes gets overlooked when we talk about enduring trials. James doesn’t simply tell believers to keep going and hope everything works out. He tells them to ask God for wisdom. Sometimes perseverance means continuing down a difficult road, but sometimes wisdom means recognizing that you’re going about something the wrong way, that you need help, or that you need to stop and reconsider what you’re doing.
Anyone who has spent much time playing Dark Souls understands that distinction. There are bosses you can defeat by learning their attacks and improving your timing, but there are also situations where the smarter decision is to leave, explore somewhere else, upgrade your equipment, and come back when you’re better prepared. You don’t become a better player by mindlessly repeating the same mistake a hundred times. You become better by learning, adapting, and understanding when a different approach is necessary.
And in life, that might mean asking somebody for advice, admitting that you need help with a problem, taking a break before frustration gets the better of you, or spending some time in prayer instead of trying to force your way through everything on your own.
Near the end of Dark Souls, the Chosen Undead reaches the Kiln of the First Flame and confronts Gwyn, the Lord of Cinder, who sacrificed himself to prolong the Age of Fire. After defeating him, the player faces a choice. You can link the First Flame, sacrificing yourself to continue the Age of Fire for a time, or you can leave the flame to fade and take the path associated with the coming Age of Dark. Neither choice offers a simple, uncomplicated happy ending, and the game leaves plenty of room to question what either outcome ultimately means.
But regardless of which ending you choose, you only reach that point because you continued the journey. You fought through Lordran, learned from your mistakes, rested when you needed to, and eventually overcame obstacles that probably seemed impossible the first time you encountered them. Not because you never failed, but because failure didn’t have to be the end of the story.
Of course, real life isn’t a video game. We don’t get unlimited attempts at every decision, and not every hardship can be overcome through determination and practice. Sometimes people face illnesses that don’t get better, losses that cannot be undone, and circumstances that don’t have a convenient solution waiting around the next corner. That’s why I think the biblical message matters more than the gaming comparison. James isn’t promising that perseverance will guarantee the outcome we want. He’s encouraging us to trust that God can continue working in us even when our circumstances remain difficult.
And Jesus reminds us that when we’re weary, we can come to Him for rest.
I think about that image of the bonfire at the end of the world. Not the whole First Flame restored, not every problem in Lordran suddenly fixed, just a little fire burning in the darkness where a tired traveler can sit for a while before continuing the journey. There’s still danger ahead, and there will probably be more failures along the way, but that doesn’t mean the journey is over.
Sometimes perseverance means getting back up and trying again. Sometimes wisdom means recognizing that you need to approach the problem differently. And sometimes the most important thing you can do is admit that you’re tired, turn to God, and find the rest you need before taking another step.
Because the Christian life isn’t about proving that we’re strong enough to endure everything on our own. It’s about learning to trust the One who is strong enough to carry us through what we cannot face alone.
See you next Sunday.
