Forked

I sometimes play online chess to raise my game. Sadly, there are few visible signs of this improvement, and like the Holy Spirit’s work in my life, it is sometimes easier to believe than behold. My white knight moved to E6 to perform what is called a ‘fork’, whereby two of my opponent's pieces are equally threatened. In this case, deliciously, the black king and queen. As the king must move, the queen therefore becomes a casuality of my cunning strategy. How clever I thought I was, till my opponent simply moved his bishop to take my knight, saving both king and queen, and losing me a key piece. So absorbed by my own cleverness, I failed to perceive a greater threat from another quarter. 

In broader life, we plan for this and that, while neglecting the most crucial thing: the state of our souls and our relationship with God. Proverbs 19:21 states:

There are many plans in a man’s heart, nevertheless the Lord’s counsel—that will stand.

If you have a great career coordinated, the perfect family anticipated, a beautiful home decorated, a wonderful retirement effectuated, but you have neglected the great Judge before whom you must give account, then it was all for nothing. The prophet Haggai asks in 1:4

“Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your panelled houses, and this temple to lie in ruins?”

Although addressed to the Jewish people of that particular day, there is a wider application here. Death will take everything away from you; it may strike unexpectedly from an unusual place, and all will be lost. Only the riches of Christ are exempt from death's thieving fingers. So make your heart His temple, seeking first the Kingdom of Heaven, for only that can insure against life's cunning forks and death-dealing blows.

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. Proverbs 14:12