God Plays Deep Chess

I was asked to talk in our sacrament meeting last week. As I sat writing it late Friday night, the thoughts just came to me. I realized I could not take credit for this talk. Afterwards I had many who reached out with words of appreciation and love. This talk came from the Lord. I was simply the conduit.

In 1988 I became the 6th grade chess champion. My dad taught me how to win in 4 moves which proved to be unstoppable.

A few year later, I met Tyler who plays chess, who plays much deeper chess than I had ever played.

To play “deep chess” you are thinking several moves ahead and anticipating your opponents moves.

Chess is not a game of chance or coincidences. There is design and purpose to each move.

Our lives are like a chess board. Our Father in Heaven is orchestrating moves far in advance, moving us from place to place. He is playing ‘deep chess’ and if we are receptive to spiritual promptings, we will be able to look back and see the Lord’s hand or at least his fingerprint in those moves.

Gerald Lund in his book Divine Signatures says “Sometimes, the Lord sends His blessings in such a highly unusual, dramatic, or precisely timed manner, that it might be likened to a ‘divine signature.’ It is as though the Lord ‘signs’ the blessing personally so that we will know with certainty that it comes from Him.”

Many years ago as I was struggling through a pretty significant trial, I was worrying to my dad about my life. He reminded me that this trial of mine had not caught the Lord by surprise like it had me. He knew this was going to happen and he had designed a different path for me.

God was playing deep chess. And through that trial he placed me in circumstances where my faith could deepen. Looking back I know for deep certainty Heavenly Father was watching over me and my family. I could see the tender mercies and divine signatures in my life.

God is in the details of our lives and when we recognize those small instances of his divine signatures then when the small instances become pandemic proportional problems, we will take comfort that he still has our back and that things will be okay.

I remember very clearly the phone call I got from Dr. Affify telling me that Ashlyn had neuroblastoma. The immediate peace I felt after that sentence was palpable. I knew that everything was going to be okay. That was a divine signature from a loving Heavenly Father. He was playing deep chess, bolstering my faith for bigger things to come.

Currently we live in a world that is just a tad bit unsettled and less than peaceful.

"To yearn to go back to a world that cannot be lived in now; to be perennially dissatisfied with present circumstances and have only dismal views of the future; to miss the here-and-now-and-tomorrow because we are so trapped in the there-and-then-and-yesterday are some of the sins of Lot’s wife."

Elder Holland goes on to remind us that

*Faith is always pointed toward the future.

*Do not dwell on days now gone, nor to yearn vainly for yesterdays, however good those yesterdays may have been.

*The past is to be learned from but not lived in. 

*Faith always has to do with blessings and truths and events that will yet be efficacious in our lives. So a more theological way to talk about Lot’s wife is to say that she did not have faith. She doubted the Lord’s ability to give her something better than she already had.

*Faith trusts that God has great things in store for each of us and that Christ truly is the “high priest of good things to come."

God is playing deep chess. This pandemic did not catch him by surprise. He is moving us into positions to strengthen our faith, to strengthen the church, to create more effective missionary service. Technology has allowed us to stream sacrament services and classes. Missionary work is taking on social media. Erik's last 6 months of missionary services was more or less survival mode as they tried to figure out how to do missionary work differently. Nate hit the ground running  using technology to do missionary work. His mission president recently reported that his mission is finding people to teach at twice the rate than it was at this time last year.

Several weeks ago in our Relief Society lesson, the question was asked “What do you do to be spiritually prepared?”

I thought about that during the week and the thought kept coming back to me that I have looked for God’s hand in my life and recorded it faithfully. When we are consciously looking for God’s divine signatures, we will find them and they will help us through not only the small moments but especially when the biggies hit in pandemic proportions.

This might not be the year any of us envisioned. Personally my family missed out on 2 graduations, a senior year of tennis, vacations, a niece’s wedding. We’ve missed getting together with family and friends and just doing our normal stuff. BUT the Lord in his mercy has given us a beautiful grandbaby whom we can’t get enough of. He’s given us good health even though our missionary ended up with the virus. We had a missionary come home and another depart within weeks of each other. We got to experience missionary life first hand with home-MTC. We got to attend a very sacred, intimate temple experience with just our family. Our high school graduation experience was much more personalized and up close than the Marriott Center and we have a new driver in the house.  Um . . . actually scratch that last one. So even though 2020 might be a year to just flush down the toilet, I wouldn’t trade it for all the great things we got to experience this year. Our family was so blessed.

"Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed." D&C 123

Cheerfully. The Lord wants us to cheerfully do what we can. Lately, I’ve heard a lot of grumbling about wanting this pandemic situation to be over. To never have to wear a mask again. Challenge 1. Do what we’ve been asked to do by our prophet and our governor because as members of the Lord’s church we believe in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law. But not only do but do it cheerfully. And Challenge 2. Look for God’s arm to be revealed through those divine signatures that will come to you and your family this week.

May you forever stand still with the utmost assurance that God loves you, cares about you, and he is playing deep chess to give you something better than you already have.