Classic WoW Tips I've learned

So, with the launch of Classic WoW on the 27th, I wanted to post a few tips I've gleaned.

1) This is not BFA or anything post-Cataclysm. You won't level to 60 in a week. Don't expect to.

2) Professions matter. If you play a warrior or a paladin, be a blacksmith/miner. If you're a rogue/druid/shaman/hunter be a leatherworker/skinner. If you're a mage/warlock/priest be a tailor/enchanter.It's the only way to have a reliable source of level appropriate armor. Quest armor isn't reliable and may not be usable by your class. Alchemy/herbalism can be a godsend for the potions. Your secondary professions can save your life with food and bandages. Also, professions are the only reliable way to make gold by selling raw materials and finished items on the Auction House. High level mining is especially lucrative.

3) Don't expect to be able to level five or ten levels in a single zone. You're going to be doing a lot of traveling from one end of a continent to another, most of it on foot until level 40.

4) In general, playing Classic WoW isn't about the endgame like it is in BFA and everything post-Cataclysm. It's all about the journey. Don't rush it. You'll have much more satisfying experience if you take your time, read the quests (you have to to find your quest objectives), and just immerse yourself.

5) Prepare to be poor until you figure out the Auction House. Once you do, be reasonable about your listing prices. Gold does not flow freely. A level 10 item will not sell for 10 gold because no level 10s will have 10 gold on them. They probably won't have 1 gold on them.

6) Visit your trainer every time you level, or at least every other level, and be prepared to pay for it. Spells and skills are not just handed to you.

7) Where professions are concerned, you will only be able to reliably find trainers up through journeyman in the cities. Expert trainers are located in only one capital city, and it varies with the trainer. Artisan trainers are located in random places throughout the world. If you have trouble finding one, PM me. I might know where it is for either Alliance or Horde.

8) Dungeons and their entry points are crawling with elites (expect difficulty at least 10 levels above what their level # says). Don't expect to just be able to walk into a dungeon that's for ten levels below you with shoddy gear like in BFA. You will die. Don't walk into a dungeon at all without a healer and a tank and expect to make it past the point of entry. It's not going to happen.

9) Each class has it's own use, and each class is useful for somethings and horrible at others. If you're going up against demons and undead, you want a paladin with you. Mage portals and conjure food can make life a lot easier. No one pvp's like a rogue. Priests are efficient and extraordinary healers. Druids are great jack of all trades and can fill any number of roles; a fully spec'd and geared druid is no joke and can be your best friend in a dungeon.

10) You're not bound by your chosen specialization. A holy paladin can tank and a protection paladin can heal. The talent trees aren't locked to a spec. You can put talents into multiple specs for something custom, and I recommend you do at least for leveling.

11) In pvp servers, cities are not generally safe. You will frequently find rogues ganking players for fun in the opposite faction's city. "Safer" cities to place your hearthstone tend to be Darnassus for the Alliance and Thunderbluff for the Horde because they're harder and more time consuming to get to. Stormwind and Orgrimmar are likely going to be under constant attack.

12) Guilds matter. You will have a much easier time playing with others than soloing. This is not a game meant to be played alone.

Finally, remember, it's about the journey, not the destination. You're in the game to relax, have fun, and make friends. A favor done for a stranger can lead to a good gaming buddy, and being a jerk can lead to people actively hunting you and celebrating your corpse in the middle of Stormwind.

Good adventuring!

About Remaining in Christ and How you Feel

There is this insane idea that if you are remaining in Christ you won't be sad, depressed, or frustrated. Here's the thing, when you are remaining in Christ, there are times when you may share in His emotions. There are times when He gets angry. There are times when He gets frustrated. There are times when He gets sad. 

A good case in point is the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus began to sweat blood. This is a condition known as Hematidrosis which occurs under extreme stress. Know what causes extreme stress? Fear. Did this mean that Jesus wasn't trusting the Father? No. He still went to the cross. But His perfectly human fear response was working just as it was intended, and it was a perfectly reasonable thing to be extremely afraid of going through. He did it anyway because of His surrender to the Father working through Him. 

Surrendering to Him doesn't mean the biological responses stop working, or that you won't ever have those fight/flight/feeding/sexual responses ever again. It doesn't mean that you will be floating on a cloud of rapturous joy 24hrs a day either. Look at Mother Theresa and the letters she wrote to her confessor about how there were times she felt as if God had abandoned her, and yet she said that she did what she did because she saw Christ in those she was moved to help. 

It's not about how you feel about it. It's never been about how you feel about it,or even being happy all the time. Most of those Saints we remember suffered immensely. Is it realistic to think that they never got depressed, or went to some very dark places? If Jesus could get so stressed out that He sweat blood because He was afraid of what was coming, if He could cry out on the cross, "My God, My God, why have you abandoned Me?" Should we who are joined to Jesus Christ expect any less? 

If we are sharing His life with Him, if we are surrendering ourselves to Him, then we too will go through this. It's not abnormal, it's not a lack of faith otherwise Jesus Himself could be accused of having a lack of faith, and it's not an aberration. It's perfectly normal. Feeling the fear is normal. Feeling like you've been thrown into a lightless pit is normal. 

Where the rubber meets the road is when you feel the fear, when you sweat blood over it, but you still surrender to Him and get up and move in the direction He's taking you, even if it means your further torture and death. Your biology won't want to go there and will start reacting. It's okay. It's normal. Don't feel guilty about it. Just surrender to Him and keep going, ask Him to do it through you just like He did before. It doesn't mean you're going to feel it any less, but it does mean you're legs will start moving and you'll keep going in the right direction.

More Random Morning Thoughts

So, I've been toying with a term for the Christian life and practice as Paul and John describe it in the New Testament, "Voluntary cooperative possession." It is where Jesus Christ takes control by your permission, and only by your permission, to act and speak through you intertwined with you. Or more accurately, The Father speaks and acts through Christ who then speaks and acts through you, Jesus Christ acting as a mediary connection between the Father and the Christian through the Christian being joined to Christ by baptism, and surrendering the will to Him. An illustration I've used before is of riding in a car on the road with God. God is driving. The second you try and take the wheel and say, "I've got this," God takes His hands off the wheel and says, "okay." That's when the car runs into a tree. We aren't just to be like Christ or to attempt a poor imitation of Him, we are to surrender our own wills and lives to His life within us that He might act and speak through us.

For the Christian, there is one simple question that needs to be asked,"Is it Jesus, or is it me?" That is, "Is it Jesus doing or saying this through me, or did it originate with my own biology, my own desires, fears, attachments, etc?" And if the answer is not Jesus, then that action or saying needs to seriously questioned if not stopped altogether. "Whatever is not from faith is sin." That is, whatever does not originate with Jesus Christ within us, originates with our own malfunctioning biology, malfunctioning fears, aggressions, attachments, etc. Paul wrote several lists or guides to help answer this question in his letters. Anger, lying, envy, jealousy, adultery, etc. are all indicators that the origination point for our words or actions is not Jesus Christ, whereas love (especially love), joy, peace, patience, etc. are indicators that it is. John wrote that whoever says he remains in Christ is obligated to walk just as Jesus Christ walked. That is, if you claim Jesus Christ as the origination point for your actions and words, then your behavior and speech should mirror Jesus Christ's because it is Jesus Christ doing it.

One of the things I hear and read frequently in response to what I've said about remaining in and surrendering to Jesus Christ is "the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak" and the context is usually trying to provide an excuse as to why someone doesn't or doesn't need to. While it is true that remaining in Christ is a discipline which takes practice, for the Christian, I don't believe it to be optional. Neither Paul nor John, nor even Jesus Himself ever described it as being optional, and Jesus Himself said in John 15 that those who did not remain in Him would dry up and be burned like dead branches. Either we, as Christians, surrender to His life within us and through us, or we don't. Either we continue to pursue Him, stumbling along the way, yes, but always getting back up and continuing the race, or we don't. And if we don't, we are described by John as not knowing Him. If you are baptized into Christ, you are on the racetrack one way or the other. Either you continue to run, or you sit on the track and are disqualified.

Yoda said, "there is no try." In many ways, this applies to remaining in and surrendering to Christ. There really isn't an "I'll try." It's a conscious decision to ask Him to act, speak, love, and live through you. And once you do, it's a conscious decision to cede control to Him. There is no "try" on our part. There is only the choice to cede control to Him or not.

The rule for the Christian is not what is "law" but what is love. It is not what is "legal" but what is compassionate. The rule for the Christian asks not "what if it were me?" But "What if it was Jesus?"

For the Christian, there is no other but Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ within and Jesus Christ without. Jesus Christ acting and speaking through me, and Jesus Christ to whom I am speaking and acting. Jesus Christ in front of me, and Jesus Christ behind me. Jesus Christ to my right, and Jesus Christ to me left. Jesus Christ above, and Jesus Christ below. There is no "other", there is no "self," there is no life but Jesus Christ, and there is no death, there is only Jesus Christ. In everything and in every way, at every turn, no matter which way you turn, unless you choose to ignore Him, unless you willfully close your eyes to Him, you will see Him staring back at you. This is what it means to be Christian. Nothing less.