February 18

I Love it When a Plan Comes Together

 

Read today’s texts first: Numbers 3 & 4; Acts 25

MAXIMize YOUR DAY

• In God’s chess match, even P.O.W.s are still in the game.

• I’m okay with just being a pawn as long as I’m on the side and in the hands of the Chess Master!

Few people know this, but no one is surprised when I tell them: I was president of the chess club in junior high school.  It may have sealed my official “nerd” status, but it also taught me a lot about life.  I learned early on that I could win the war by conceding a few battles along the way.  While my opponent was deliriously distracted by taking my occasional knight or bishop, I was concentrating on the bigger picture.  While pretending I was retreating, I was actually maneuvering my castle and Queen in on his king.  And just when he was feeling completely superior, comparing his P.O.W.s to mine, I would crush his spirit with the completely unexpected “checkmate.”

That’s why I love being on God’s side in the war of good vs. evil.  Paul’s story is like so many of the great table-turning tales of the past: Moses and Pharaoh, Mordecai and Haman, David and Goliath.  Just when you think Paul is done, God, the ultimate chess player, gives him an audience with some of the most influential men of the Roman world and arranges an all-expenses-paid trip to Rome.  He maneuvers Paul into the next key city of His master plan to evangelize the known world with the gospel.  And Paul is the perfect man for the job - a natural-born Roman citizen, highly educated, and articulate enough to command the attention of Rome’s elite: Commander Claudius Lysias, Governors Felix and Festus, King Agrippa, and finally an appeal to Caesar.  In God’s chess match, even P.O.W.s are still in the game.

I call it the Calvary factor.  Satan’s greatest weakness is his pride – he is deluded enough to think he can win the war.  He can get so caught up in winning a few skirmishes that he loses sight of the big picture: the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory; the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood, for if they had understood it they would never have crucified the Lord of glory (1 Corinthians 2:8).  Jesus snatched victory from the jaws of defeat on Golgotha with the words “it is finished.”  Translation – “checkmate” or in the words of A-Team’s Hannibal Smith, “I love it when a plan comes together!”

“Lord, You are the chess master, not me.  Sometimes I don’t see the big picture either, but as the Master Planner, You do.  I’m okay with just being a pawn as long as I’m on Your side and in Your hands!”