Checkmate

Reading my Bible at an early hour this morning, I came across a passage written by Paul: "And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." (Ephesians 3:17-19)

Before I reached the end of it, I had in my mind a picture of a chess board, but not like the kind I've ever played on. That's hard enough to understand and play. No, I was seeing a three-dimensional board, like Spock played in an episode. (You still out there, Bennett?) It's not three times harder than an earthly board, but more like 3x3x3 = 27 times harder.

When I play chess, I'm only thinking one or two moves ahead, and I have no idea what's in the other guy's head that will cancel mine out. I'm no grand chessmaster, not even in my own family. But God already sees the final move and victory. He knows the wide-long-high-deep, and even adds knowledge of time to it. Look past our present condition and trust in God. He has the big picture.

Amen

I got a subspace communique from Admiral Mansfield that I was missed haha.

"Queen to queen's level three."
"Queen to king's level one."

RRCmdrBennett wrote:I got a subspace communique from Admiral Mansfield that I was missed haha.

"Queen to queen's level three."
"Queen to king's level one."

Welcome aboard Garth...

Phillip Gross wrote:

RRCmdrBennett wrote:I got a subspace communique from Admiral Mansfield that I was missed haha.

"Queen to queen's level three."
"Queen to king's level one."

Welcome aboard Garth...

That’s Fleet Captain Garth to you crewman…

I bet you had to look it up!

RRCmdrBennett wrote:
That’s Fleet Captain Garth to you crewman…

I bet you had to look it up!

Of course I had to look it up! I watched that stuff years ago, but don't remember much of it.

Phillip Gross wrote:

RRCmdrBennett wrote:
That’s Fleet Captain Garth to you crewman…

I bet you had to look it up!

 Of course I had to look it up! I watched that stuff years ago, but don't remember much of it.

Off scrubbing plasma conduits with a sonic toothbrush for you crewman!  I had to look up the sign countersign they gave in the episode for beaming i watched it with my dad in syndication in the early 80’s and we always saw the original cast movies in theaters.

Standing in church this morning during the worship time, I looked around and could only see one man singing along. The rest were silently standing by their wives, who were definitely singing. And something occurred to me.

I'm generalizing here, but you know how country western songs are mostly about beer, trucks and losing a girlfriend? It seems like the majority of praise songs at church and on K-Love are all about being the victims of our own stupid decisions and praying for God to come rescue us. And they tug at emotions that "well-adjusted" guys don't normally spend much time on. In a like way, the director of The Chosen series actually said that they have scripted their shows to appeal to the female 25-40 demographic. Just like our songs are? What's going on here?

What happened to songs like Psalm 125, Courageous or The Voice of Truth? I want to sing songs that Joshua and Caleb would be singing. Yeah! Into the Promised Land! Instead, we get songs that the timid, tail-between-their-legs 10 spies would be singing. I am tired of seeing the Church aimlessly circling about in the Wilderness. Yes, the giants are big, but we KNOW they can be defeated. All it takes is an indefatigable spirit, strength given by the Holy Spirit. Joshua and Caleb. J and C. A good model to follow, just as another JC is.

And what if we're just a bunch of pawns on the chessboard? So what! We can still win with the right set of moves.