Playing Chess, Knowing the Bible, and Relationship with our Father: I

Our ten-year old grandson was with us for a few days last week. Last year he learned the basic moves of chess. In addition to giving him a chess set for Christmas, I tried to engage him in an online game of chess, one which uses a board hosted by a website; after one player moves the other player is notified of the move via email so that player in turn can login and make the next move. Since each player has ten days to make his next move there is time to think and analyze and learn.

During visits to his home prior to his recent visit to ours I’ve played a few chess games with him, as with many young players just learning the game he has been moving pieces just to move pieces and taking pieces just to take pieces – while I’m sure there is some method to his moves it is a method that will hopefully be left behind sooner rather than later.

My reason for inviting Andrew to an online game of chess wasn’t to play chess with him, but rather to have some grandfather to grandson communication; the online chess board has a box in which players can “chat” with each other, so I asked Andrew questions about what he was doing at school, church, Cub Scouts, etc. At first Andrew was pretty quick to play his next move, usually within a day or two, and with some prodding by me he started answering my questions and even asking me some. I tried to prolong the chess game by making moves that didn’t make “chess sense” but that did make grandfather sense – after all, my goal was relational. However, after two or three weeks the interval between his moves got longer and longer. His family went on vacation, and prior to vacation he had gone two weeks without a move; he was on vacation for one week; after he returned from vacation we went another two weeks without a move – finally I reluctantly claimed a win based on him exceeding the ten-day move limit. This has been over a month ago and he has never said anything to me about it – not even when he was here last week and we played a few games of chess – it’s as if our online game never happened.

(If you’re wondering why I claimed the win it was to see if Andrew would notice and also, should Andrew notice, that I could talk to Andrew about commitment and follow-through and wanting to play chess with him. It would have been a low-key talk and then hopefully we would have started another game).

I wonder how often I have been like my dear grandson in my relationship with my heavenly Father? I’ll enter into a season of rich morning devotions…but then my focus will change to pressing work issues. I’ll begin a learning or writing project in the evening but then will use physical fatigue or mental or emotional weariness as an excuse to engage in diversions. Why yesterday evening I was reminded that a couple of weeks ago I was impressed to study a Biblical book, and while I began with purpose and intention I realized last night that I had gone over a week without pondering this particular Biblical text – even though my Bibles and study material were gathered together and hence easily accessible. (Prior to writing this today I was back into the Biblical book).

Andrew may never realize that playing the game was not my goal, but rather relationship. Do we realize that our Father and Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit desire intimate relationship with us – and that whatever the “game” may be that God’s desire is for it to be played in relationship with Him? We were created to relationally know Him, individually and together.

To be continued….