Playing Checkers with Jesus
Jesus has a funny way of showing up sometimes. I had just finished my second cup of coffee after reading copious amounts of news when I finally began to engage in prayer. It wasn’t long until an image floated into my consciousness.
I saw myself sitting on the veranda of a rustic wooden house in the middle of a forest with a lush meadow stretching before it like an enormous green lawn. Before I knew it Jesus was striding across the meadow and then climbing the steps of the porch to join me. We sat down together at a round table where a board game was laid out for play. Suddenly, it was his move.
“King me!” he said. Dutifully, I placed a checker on top of the piece that had managed to reach my side of the board.
With that, my morning daydream evaporated. What, if anything, did that little reverie mean? Was it my subconscious trying to get my attention, the Holy Spirit tugging at me, or a momentary glitch in consciousness?
I was intrigued by the clear command to “King me!” It’s been years since my last game of checkers, so I decided to look up the rules to remind myself what this meant. You probably know that a single checker can only move forward on a diagonal basis. It can never move backward. If a checker succeeds in evading capture and makes it to the end of the board, it is then “kinged,” at which time the opposing player must put a previously captured piece on top of it, thus doubling its height.
The nifty thing about such checker kings is not that they’re twice as tall as a single piece or that the black ones look like Oreos, but that they have new power to maneuver. They can move either forward or backwards, combining jumps in several directions in the same turn. The odds of winning the game clearly favor the player with the most kings.
Was Jesus trying to tell me something during my time of prayer? I thought he might be. Perhaps he was trying to get my attention regarding a difficult situation I was attempting to navigate. Maybe he was saying it was time for me to pry my little hands off things I had no control over, like a struggle that a family member was lately having, one that was creating a great deal of anxiety in me.
But how precisely could I “king” him in that situation? I didn’t think sheer force of will would work. Me simply trying to do better was not what was being asked. Instead, I asked him to help me do what I couldn’t on my own. Would he give me the wisdom and the grace to lean in the direction he wanted me to go? Would he help me to believe that the Holy Spirit would enable my response?
For the next two weeks I pondered and prayed. Before long, the circumstances I had found challenging created so much difficulty for me that I felt forced to let go. It seemed the only possible choice. So I decided to absent myself from the situation for a while, praying that the Lord would step in as I stepped away. And he did. Without my hovering presence, he seemed to move in unexpected ways. There were rough moments, but things got better.
Since then, I have wondered where else I need to respond to God’s call to “king me.” Without realizing it, I have sometimes constructed my own thrones, placing my concerns on them. I elevate what I should subordinate as though doing so will somehow yield answers to intractable problems. It might be a concern for a loved one, a difficulty in my church, worries about the shape of things in our world.
But thrones, of course, are designed to be occupied by persons not things. Elevating situations and circumstances makes for a life of anxiety not confidence. Fortunately, peace is restored the more I listen to the call to enthrone Jesus.
So, the question for me, and for all of us, is how to do this in every sphere of life, whether personal or public. In the realm of current cultural conflicts, I am asking myself what it would look like for me to respond to Jesus’ command to
King me in the way I respond to those on the extreme left and right.
King me so that I am better able to perceive the difference between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world and put my greatest efforts toward the former.
King me in the way I research current issues and form opinions.
King me in the way I resist the temptation to bundle together issues that may have nothing to do with the gospel or that may even contradict it, simply because I identify with one political tribe or another.
King me so that I can get that doggone plank out of my own eye first.
King me so that I can remember that everyone I encounter has been made in the image of God even though some, as Mother Teresa has said, are “Jesus in distressing disguise.”
King me. King me. King me.
How this sacred demand to elevate God above every aspect of life is fulfilled in times of cultural upheaval will vary.
In Moses’ life it meant leaving privilege behind in order to lead his people out of bondage and toward the land God had promised.
In Joshua’s time, it meant trusting God to display his strength as he followed his order to march in circles around a fortified city until its walls collapsed.
In Jeremiah’s time it meant telling people the truth they didn’t want to hear– that God wasn’t’ going to rescue them because it was he who had arranged their exile. (Jeremiah 29: 7)
In Mary’s time it meant proclaiming a coming revolution and then leading her life as a wife to Joseph and mother to Jesus.
In Jesus’ time, it meant accepting the agony of the cross as the path of the King.
How might the request to “king me” unfold in the church today? Perhaps it begins by looking in the mirror and being honest about what we see--weakness, confusion, division, shallowness, a fall from privilege and position. Our dirty laundry is hanging in plain sight for everyone to see. The sex scandals; the ugliness of our speech and actions in the political realm; the desperate grasping for power; the sacrilege of mixing cross and flag; and the betrayal of God’s Word in order to embrace cultural trends that contradict it.
Weakness and reckoning are hard words to swallow. Even if we have been guilty of none of these things, it’s embarrassing to be identified with fellow Christians who have. That’s the downside of being part of the body of Christ, a spiritual reality that none of us can escape. The upside is that we are faced with an important opportunity.
As with all spiritual opportunities, this one involves following the example of Jesus. Though blameless, he waded into the Jordan River to be baptized in full view of the self-righteous religious leaders who were standing in judgment on the riverbank. His love compelled him to humble himself by identifying with broken human beings rather than with those who thought they were too good to submit to John’s baptism. It was a choice that greatly pleased his Father.
Though we are far from blameless, we, too, can humble ourselves before God on behalf of his people. We can begin by inviting the Great Physician to diagnose our own ills so we can be healed. We can repent and intercede for fellow believers, asking God to revive his church, starting with the one we attend. We can be comforted by remembering that chastisement and divine rebuke are signs that we are children of a loving Father. (Hebrews 12: 5-6).
Perhaps his invitation to “king me,” is also an opportunity to trust him. To believe that he is still in control and that he cares about our world. That he is not shocked, though he may be grieved, by the headlines that dominate the daily news. “Kinging him” simply involves recognizing his true position and ours, relative to him. When that happens, how glad we will be to turn away from our little fiefdoms and demolish our little thrones!
Allowing Jesus to be the King means that we will never be without a leader who can deploy, instruct, guide, equip, and watch over us. It means that the church itself can grow strong though everything around it crumbles.
The truth is that in every era and place, whether or not we admit it, Jesus is King. He is sovereign over all the mess of this world and all the light that manages to escape through its cracks. And who better to know about cracks than Christ followers who admit they are broken? Surely it is due to the brilliance of King Jesus that his broken and beloved children can become his instruments to mend the world.
Learning to Surf
Love the joy your bring to this relationship with your King!
Thanks for this Ann. Found myself nodding throughout and in a few places considering a change to ways I’ve been approaching things.