Faith/Grace and Chess 

I’ve always been able to assess my circumstances, in order to determine what the risks and strengths are and what logical steps to take in the light of the findings of this assessment. Thus, in moments when everyone is panicking, I’ve often been able to calm down and determine what the main danger is and the best way out of the trouble. One way in which this has paid off is in my chess games. 

I was blessed to learn to play chess in my high school and in a country like Nigeria (where the game was not so common at the time) it provided me with a lot of advantages and experiences. One of these advantages was being able to attend competitions and travel to new places that my mates could not usually attend, and this introduced me to new people, new ways of life and generally, new horizons. One other thing it did however, was ‘put me in my place’. As the senior in my school, and as one of the early founders of the club, I was one of those who could play a little better than many others and so I felt like I was good, until I went for competitions and met people that had played this game for years. Some of these people studied chess like a book and some even played at the olympics. In that moment, my wings were clipped and I knew that I still had much to learn.

A side effect of being able to analyze situations however, was knowing your true strength and thereby, your weaknesses, and I tended to focus a little more on the latter. I prefered to overrate my opponents, than to underestimate them, but that way, I always thought that everyone was better than me and I always believed that I would fail. However, I was not one to quit, so I often took the bull by the horn, especially since I was often the group leader and needed to show courage for the sake of my team members. 

God however, taught me marvelous lessons from these games.

I learned many lessons from these games, both in relation to the game, and general social and psychological lessons; but in relation to faith/grace and chess, I learned to redefine the meaning of weakness and I learned how weakness really did not matter in the hand of God. Now as a caveat, I would like to state here that I only went to inter-school/university games and the rules may defer in many other situations, like in the olympics. I would also like to state that although I tell of victories here, I also lost many games. However, I focus on the victories here, because I learnt valuable lessons from each of these games. So the story begins.

Trust and Obey and leave the rest to him

In this game, I was representing my university, along with other team members and having gone for high level competitions, I had a little more experience and knowledge than those who merely learned to play by playing with other friends. I was also the team captain and could manipulate the arrangements of seats to my favour if I wanted. However, I really fear and love God and if I want to pray to him, as I knew I would have to during the game, I would have to come with clean hands. This meant, not manipulating the game or arrangements without full disclosure to the other team members. 

Now one of the things I knew was that often, the strongest team players sat on table one, unless the coach manipulated it. So I wanted to sit on the last table (table four) so that I would play the weakest player and have the opportunity to win. However, I also knew that once I released the information, every team member would want that seat as well. I grumbled and tried to argue with God that I would not necessarily be cheating if I didn’t mention this fact, since it was everyone’s duty to know, but my conscience knew that that would be wrong. So I let it go, said a prayer and sat on table 1 resigning my fate to God. In that game, for the first and only time, in all my games of chess, there were only two team members (since the game was not yet so popular) and they chose to sit at table 3 and 4 instead of table 1 and 2. I automatically got a free point from the work over. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I would have insisted on my way and have walked right into the trouble. I’m not so sure how this played out, but after this, I was moved up to play for the title of gold for that table- Something about points cancelling out points and I was the only one with a point, without ever even needing to play. 

The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but time and chance happeneth to them all

My other teammates had not played the game much, so they lost their game and this automatically became the perception that the other teams had of me and my other team members. They heard that I was stronger though, so they came to ask me questions to confirm if it was true. This was true, but I couldn’t let them know this, since I just realized now that I had a trump card, but I couldn’t lie either, because clean hands right? At the last moment, I realized that I didn’t have to lie, but didn’t have to say the truth either, so I just calmly explained that I was in a senior class and the team captain, which could be responsible for that perception (note, I didn’t say it was responsible. I only said it ‘could be’. My legal training was paying off. Whew!!!!). 

They ran off to tell their other team mate that was to play with me that the game was practically a work over and would end, just like my other teammate’s games had and the lady came to play with me with that perception. 

I was indeed not so strong and this lady was really good and when the game started, she soon took over. I played so badly, and soon, she had captured a lot of my pieces. However, my coach always insisted that we played the game to the end and we couldn’t quit, so I did just that. This lady had an hour left and I had about 17 more minutes by the last time I checked my time, because I took so much time thinking of each move. Basically, at some point, I was just on the defense, trying to ensure that the game did not end. However, this was the point where God taught me one of the lessons about weakness.

I had played so badly, that she knew that I was really not a good player and by now, all the other games had ended and all the other players had surrounded our table and I heard people calling me stubborn and laughing and expecting each move to be my last. However, in this moment, my weakness became my strength. First of all, I needed so much time to think that this other lady’s patience had worn really thin. Next, she had confirmed by now that I was not such a good player, just like my other team members. So she probably got too confident or just used moves that she thought I wouldn’t realize or maybe, just didn’t think I would be capable of finding a way out of the tight spot I was currently in. I don’t recall much of what happened, because it’s all hazy now and I don’t want to embellish the story. However, all I remember thinking was, oh my God, I have just 17 minutes and she has an hour and I’m losing on the board too. Then somehow, in the next moment, I recall her saying “I underestimated her, that is the problem”. Somewhere in between that time, I had figured out a way through, with God’s help and from my years of experience with end games. I won and everyone was astounded, me included.

I had been praying all through the game and because I had often failed at open and middle games, but if the game was able to get to the end game, I had often found a way out and God had helped me here once again. 

Thus, in this moment, my weakness had become my saving strength, because that made my opponent make the move that gave me a way out and the victory and God as usual had come through in the last minute. In this moment therefore, weakness had become a blessing in the hands of the almighty God. The game had been won, not by the strong, but by a favourable moment of time and change.

It’s not about your weakness, it’s about his strength

In another competition, this time crucial, because money was hanging in the balance and my vice chancellor had just specifically told me that they were counting on me, I encountered God’s help and mercy, but also his power over weaknesses. 

I had played a game and was just about to lose when an arbiter came and interrupted and ended the game, making me the winner -which I would be if we were playing by the rules of the game which he believed we were playing by. Unfortunately, he had applied the rules of a different type of game to our current game and even if it were that game, I would have to call the attention of the arbiter to my win and not the other way around. This however saved me from losing that game. 

The arbiter had spoken and it was a win for me and I could claim it and insist on it if I wanted and all the other team would do was grumble, but I knew that before the sight of God, although he had helped me stop the game before I truly lost, he wouldn’t be pleased if I held on to a wrongful victory. So the other team called for a rematch. I went to my hostel and prayed and told God that I would do the right thing. I pleaded with him and told him that as he had helped me before, I would trust him to help me again. WIth that peace, I went back for the rematch.

Now, by this time, I was aware that my opponent was far stronger than I was and I was so worried, but I kept trusting. Before the game, as I usually did, I touched the mat and spoke blessings over it and declared that the game would favour me and I think the opponent thought that I was speaking incantations and enchantments. 

Anyway, as the game began again, I was losing again and I was good enough to see a mate in five, I just didn’t know if my opponent would see the move. I held my breath waiting to see her next move and she did indeed see it and I knew that the game was over and there was absolutely no way out. Suddenly, as she tried to make her move, we both realized that she had two black bishops (that is, two bishops on a black square, instead of one on white and one on black). None of us had noticed this before and she had to correct this error. I don’t even know when this mistake happened, because it was definitely not the case at the beginning of the game, and I doubt that it was the case, when I looked at her moves and calculated the mate in five, but somehow, this was the case now. She had to retrace her steps and change her moves and somehow, her entire game plan got spoiled and I think I had a mate in three after that. In that moment, I looked like the strong player that had beaten her twice, despite her call for a rematch, but I knew the truth. I had almost lost this game twice and it was a wonder that no one else saw that. God had intercepted and intervened twice and it was somehow only visible to me.

That was another lesson for me. I learned that it didn’t matter if I was weak. All that mattered was the power and ability of God to salvage the situations. Also, I realized that I knew without a doubt that I should have lost that game, but no one else saw that, not even my opponent it seemed. So all my focus on my weakness had been for nothing and all along, I should just have focused instead on the strength and ability of God. So now, whenever I feel like a situation is bad, I focus on God’s ability and tell my mind that it’s not as bad as it seems and even if it is, I trust that God can make it right again. I also think of how amazing God is, that he made me realize my weakness, so that I would never boast or be proud, but he covered that weakness in the eyes of others, so that all that they saw was his glory in my life.

Thus, despite not being the best, time and chance happened to me in each game. So at the end of the day, it didn’t matter that I was not as good as I wanted to be, or that I was not as strong as the opponent, or that I didn’t even know the opponent’s strength. All that mattered was that regardless of each of our strengths, God did all that was necessary to make me win. 

Lesson for you– 

Don’t feel like you are not enough; and in fact, even if you think that you are not enough, don’t focus on that. That is not the most important thing. The important thing is that weak or strong, God is able to finish the good work that he has begun in you. Just look to Jesus, the author and the finisher of your faith.