Playing Chess with God

I think that would make a good title for anything--a book, poem, painting, song, etc--but today it's just a blog post.

I play chess. I know the basics of the board, the players, and the rules. I can hold my own in a game with someone of my same skill level but I also have a gift for annoying players that are better than me until they give in and surrender their king before I have even had a chance to do something stupid, like give up the queen for a pawn or something. That is the worst. I hate giving up any piece to a pawn. If you want to make me angry while we play chess, get me into a position where I have to give up a knight or a bishop to one of your pawns. I can't stand that. I really don't like it when I am so concerned with one corner of the board that I don't even see the little pawn coming from the other side, just waiting to capture a more powerful piece while I'm unaware.

This past weekend I had an interesting conversation with some friends I live with. It was late and we were talking about how our lives have turned out a little differently than how we'd planned them. Tell me about it--I'm about to graduate and turn 24 and my last date was a Sunday dinner that I did all the work for--including the asking! (Okay in his defense he helped with the dishes.)

But that's not the point of this post. One of my roommates had a flash of brilliance (this is not an uncommon occurrence in my apartment--all of my roommates are brilliant) and said how sometimes we really are trying to play chess with God when we try to tell Him what should be happening in our lives. I can just imagine me running around with my queen, trying to hunt down knights (get it?) and Heavenly Father suddenly coming around with a pawn, taking my queen and igniting my anger. It's not like He's trying to be vindictive or that I'm being punished somehow, just that He has a different idea for me. Maybe, just maybe, he is trying to train me, a little pawn, into believing that if I make it across the board, side-stepping obstacles that come in my way and avoiding danger, that after all that work I will make it to the last row and become a queen. I am a pawn with the potential to become a queen. Who am I to tell God that I have to be the queen now, without putting in all the work to become one? Who am I to try to "check" God and force Him to move the king?

Playing chess with God can end very badly or gloriously. That part is my choice. If I can just be patient as a little pawn and stop envying all the knights and bishops and rooks and queens and kings who are all around me, who I think are somehow better than me, I will discover that not only do I have my own strengths as a pawn, but I have a King behind me who is trying to teach me that, with a little practice, lots of endurance and even more love and patience, I can become a queen.

I think I'm going to play chess a little differently from now on.