Meditation on a Chessboard

Read Time - 15 Minutes

There are 64 squares on a chess board. If we played a game, I could, with 100% accuracy, predict that your first move would be to one of just 20 squares out of the 64 because there are exactly 20 possible opening moves in chess, no more, no less. If you move a Rook’s Pawn forward one space, you will have nineteen possible moves available on your next turn, no more, no less. However, if you move the King’s Pawn first, then you will have 27 possible options for your second move.

On it goes, each move redesigning the options; sometimes adding, sometimes taking them away, other times forcing your opponent to retreat or allowing an attack. Life is similar. We make decisions which can limit or expand our options. A decision can also entreat, coerce or force others to make decisions in their lives. A passionate couple falls in love and decides to marry. Their life will never be the same, the ripples of that decision impacts both their families and circles of friends, for good or perhaps, not.

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"...why is it then so difficult to believe that God knows exactly what is going to happen next, while simultaneously giving us freedom to do what we want?"

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Like a good chess player, we try to predict three or four moves ahead. We try and control the game as much as we can. Computer chess programs do this as well. In programming lingo, an evaluation function is used to heuristically determine the relative value of a position. Artificial Intelligence (AI) will learn to predict your moves based on your style of play but potentially also based on your online profile or a composite of your spending habits. Are you prone to risky behavior or more conservative? Introvert or extrovert? Our friends make these same judgments about us, and not just when playing chess. When we can accept that a super computer, like Deep Blue, can process 2 million chess positions per second, why is it then so difficult to believe that God knows exactly what is going to happen next, while simultaneously giving us freedom to do what we want?

To start our chess match, I know you will choose one of 20 spaces. Am I controlling you? Am I a great prophet? The cynic would argue that he might just choose an illegal space to prove me wrong. But then we are not really playing chess, are we? There are rules to the game. Within those rules there is predictability, no matter the complexity. When Grandmasters play chess, a battle of minds and wills riddles the board with what may seem like infinite options, each trying to out predict the other along multiple lines of possibility. This is why computers need to analyze 2 million positions per second or have AI adaptive learning capabilities. But there are still rules to the game. The rules, the 64 square boundaries, et all, nourish predictability.

Your and my existence is also governed by rules. Not human made “rules” but universal laws; unchangeable absolutes. Our 64 squares are the boundaries of Time, the constraints of a corporeal body, the reproductive cycle, the laws of nature; there are others. Time, one could argue, is our most conspicuous law. Every move we make is governed by time. Yet, we now understand that Time itself, according to physicists, is not constrained by time.

Consider then if a player did not exist within time, all the vast variations of the combinations of the game would be simultaneously known. He or she would be able to “see” all the various possibilities. It might appear more like an object than a sequence of events. All illustrations are inadequate but imagine a cube encompassing layer upon layer of various patterns, each representing a possible move linked to the various next possible moves. You would have a unique perspective on the game. Perhaps you would no longer see it as a game at all. The Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, does not exist within time, yet has chosen to create us within time.

We study, work, romance, marry, have children, and bang away through time, some aimlessly, others with what seems an insatiable purpose. As Christians, we are charged with taking up our cross daily and working out our salvation. Just like we work on our relationships with those we love, we are tasked with working on our relationship with Christ. We are challenged to understand Him and often find ourselves trying to predict His behavior and certainly trying to contextualize our life within His. It is a challenge made formidable by the struggle of the Old Man against the New Man and the Carnal against the Spirit. Yet we persevere knowing it may take a lifetime to truly even begin to fathom all He is. Perhaps we “see through a glass darkly” in part because our Savior lives as the Beginning and the End even while we live within the arc of time.

It’s a fair consideration. Our finite existence has pondered the infinite since the beginning. We ask, “why,” a lot, “If I am trying my best to serve Christ, then why this sudden calamity?” And then we are off on composing every possible scenario of how God is judging us or we disappointed Him or the Devil got to us. All might be true, or not.

A friend lost his Bible. It was precious to him. He had it for years and years and it was full of notes about things he had learned and diary type entries about people who had influenced his life. One of his online friends informed him that God probably took his Bible away because he had begun to idolize the sentiments he had for it and his feelings for it had become more important than his devotion to the words of God. So, according to this person, my friend was heartbroken over losing his Bible because God took it away because he didn’t care anything about what was in the Bible… ? Embarrassingly, our desperation to explain why things happen often inspires such lunacy.

Surely many things happen simply because someone exercised their freedom to choose. Cain slew Able. A thief steals a Bible. A person acts upon an evil impulse and others suffer. Unfortunately, Christians are not immune to acts of evil. It would seem reprehensible for a Christian to steal a Bible. Maybe it’s happened though. We certainly know of cases where a professing Christian slew another in the name of Christ. Paul of Tarsus expressed his own frustration at doing the very thing he did not want to do while desiring to do the thing he wanted to do. Our fleshly desires to get what we want arouse devilish plots and schemes too often in the name of Christ. Yet we remain perplexed about why bad things happen in the world. Some even use the fact that bad things happen as an excuse to believe God does not exist at all. But we and our fellow humans are the purveyors of all the suffering and destruction.

We are baited to self serving acts, then ask God why He did not provide a better job, or more money, or a more caring husband. Did we really seek His guidance in our decisions or are those things of our own making? Do we heed His voice when He speaks? Do we even ask Him what He thinks?

There is hope. After all, we are promised that all things work together for good for the Christian. How can that be? God knows every possible path our life can take. Like the most powerful supercomputer, He can see every variable. Because He does not exist within Time, He knows all infinitely. And He loves us infinitely. Some say He is patient but patience is a time based construct. Can He be patient or impatient? It would seem, not. Did He know Cain would slay Able? Surely. Did He want Cain to slay Able? Surely, not.

As we grow in Christ, it must be possible to sense, at least in a clouded way, His direction in our life. He is moving us toward intimacy with Him and along with that process, many other tangible life experiences. When we complain or inquire or admonish Him about why we have not fulfilled our calling or achieved our goal or become who we want to become, perhaps He is, in some ways, listening and thinking, “I see you as you are in eternity.” He sees the end already. He sees us as we are destined to be in time. If His path for us leads to having children, then it is, perhaps, nonsensical to Him when we complain about not having children since He sees us with children and all the generations that follow forever like He did with Abraham. Is the reality of being that which He has destined us to be just as real to Him as the anguish of our perceived failure is real, within Time, to us?

Although He sees our completion, He does not abandon us in the now. Is it possible that of all the possible paths we could take in life, He has a best in class path; a path He knows will move us toward a closer relationship with Him, and toward our Earthly destiny, in the most efficient way possible? Why don’t we just take this path? Well, we either wrestle against principalities and powers or we don’t. Satanic powers are aligned against us. The Enemy tries to confuse us and get us off that path, baiting us with sin and temptation.

A classic chess strategy is to sacrifice one of your pieces in order to capture a more powerful piece. When we give in, when we impulsively take the weak little pawn, we can find ourselves quickly losing our Queen: a marriage is lost, an opportunity is gone, the crushing power of darkness envelopes our life. God is not deterred in His love for us, but we have just set in motion a series of variables that must now be considered as we move forward in our life.

Like the wake of a ski boat racing across a lake, our acts, for good and for evil, ripple beyond the moment they are created, traveling far into life. The cowardly complain through the years about how they are a victim of circumstance or got the bad deal. They question, “Where is God?” It takes courage to admit our selfishness and destructive behavior was the culprit and that sometimes we must endure the consequences of our actions, sometime for longer than we ever wanted. Does Christ then leave us to our suffering? He never forsakes us and never leaves us. When we have the humility to repair our relationship with Him, His grace takes over.

God begins to move the pieces around on His cosmic chess board, working things “together.” Sometimes it takes longer than we want and there are times we can not see how things could possibly work out. But across all time and space, He sees all the possibilities. He sees all the relationships and all the potential relationships that can affect our lives. He sees how you or I, aware or perhaps not, could be moved, directed, and used to help others. Just like in any relationship, communication with the Holy Spirit becomes critical in knowing what to do and when to do it. A prayer life opens our ears to His voice. Then we begin to see changes take place in our lives, in other people’s lives. He can set us back on the path. We can not be snatched from His hand. Even when we take the long path instead of the short path, He keeps guiding us back to Himself. He exists in the concept of all eternity, “moving” pieces around, always guiding us, loving us, desiring a closer relationship with us, seeing the infinite possibilities in us. Indeed, He endured the cross to release us from death and even all creation from bondage and decay. He offers us friendship and heir-ship with Him. He chose us when He died for us and He sees our ultimate transformation. He sees it. The question is, will we?