Thursday, September 27, 2007

Chess & Purpose

Colton and I play a lot of chess. At only ten years old, he frequently beats me. That makes me mighty proud!

In chess, the object is to capture your opponent's King. It's easy to forget this and think that the object is to take out your opponent's players. Capturing your opponents players feels like progress. Whenever someone asks, "Who's winning?" It's easy to point to the pile of captured players and say, "Well Bob has captured more men." It sounds great, but it could be meaningless. Often, taking out your opponent's players can actually hurt you. It may be better to have the King blocked in by his own army. The worst scenario is when you could "checkmate" your opponent's King, but you miss the opportunity because you're so focused on capturing his/her Queen. Capturing your opponent's players feels great and looks like success, but it's not the purpose of the game.

One of the great challenges in life is keeping your purpose, priorities and/or focus on your strategic target and not on the periphery--no matter how much the latter looks like success.

“Therefore … let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith,…” Heb 12:1-2

1 comment:

Sarah said...

I love to play chess! Maybe I will be fresh competition for Colton. :)