Favor of God: Or Chance In Chess

Born-again Christians speak about favor (or "favour") often. Today I experienced it in chess. CHESS is rational & mentally demanding, & luck is absent. "Good Luck & Bad Luck" are bandied about & have wide appeal. As I grew in my Bible Study & in my relationship with Jesus as "Redeemer, Prophet, Priest, King," I saw there is no "luck." The Scripture says, "All things work" - in a unified whole, through sovereignty, "for Good to those who love God. And ARE CALLED according to His purpose." Spending time in Bible study & prayer keeps us under a great umbrella of protections. This, in short, is GRACE: unearned benefits, but only after we declare Jesus as LORD (Romans 8;10) Previously on PS, I said CHESS is political, even black versus white, & rarely shows joy but knotted eyebrows on players' visages. Today I played on CHESSTEMPO.com, someone 200 points higher in rating than me. Usually I play the BOTS only with such ratings. I calmly clicked on the challenge. I played well until the middle game. I missed taking his unprotected Knight & lost mine in the next move. Now I was two points back. In the endgame, we traded Castles/rooks. Opponent was in a good OFFENSIVE position. An unforced error saw my Queen die: my KING was checked, but my Queen & Second Rook were on the same line (#2) with my KING in their midst. Under check, I moved the King back to Line #1. But instead of taking his aggressive Rook/Castle with mine, I absent-mindedly took his piece with my Queen, which was promptly eaten by his supporting piece. Favor? Yes, I did win, and how! My one Rook/Castle backed up a pawn set for PROMOTION, while at the side of my rather lonesome KING now. Opponent moved his QUEEN in the way -blocking my pawn's path. Because of FAVOR or grace, my Opponent didn't use his TWO pieces (Queen & KNIGHT) to kill my pawn set for promotion. He tried to trap my Rook, instead. I slid to the next square. Then checked his KING on last row, the same row where his Queen sat in the way of my hard-working PAWN. My ROOK while checking his king trapped his QUEEN between my Pawn & my CASTLE. He had no choice but to save his KING (rules of the game). This allowed my PAWN to take his Queen - saving his KING from check - only to see my PAWN promoted & his KING back in check. He resigned. In CHESS, I managed to kill a Goliath today. Not in my power - or even Chess-experience, or smarts (I have little of those) but in the grace of God! (c)Deo.Thanx 4Reading my 3-game testimony & 1 loss v. BOT