Rescue Me!

 

He rescued me from my powerful enemies, from my foes, who were too strong for me. ~Psalm 18:17

If you enjoy playing backgammon, as my husband, Danny, and I do every evening we can, this is not a formation you wish to face under any circumstances.  In a few fortuitous rolls of the dice, Danny's brown checkers have trapped my two white ones in what seems like an impossible impasse as there is, in this moment, no way out of the trap he and his dice have cleverly set.  How can two dice, with the top number of six, even have a glimmer of a hope in rescuing my unfortunate soldiers out of the mess they find themselves in?

These checkers, being side by side, are immune from further attacks at this juncture, but so are Danny's.  That is poor comfort when I have to continue to roll the dice and hope that I will have time to build a foreboding block on my home turf before Danny's team closes in.  That doesn't include rolling high numbers at this point.  For example, if I roll a six, and none of my free checkers can move a six, it's as good as losing my turn.  My block could end up looking like this -

See the stragglers?  They become fair game for Danny if, when I finally break free and can possibly hit one of his now unprotected soldiers, he has to reenter the game in my home field.  Rats!  But if I'm surrounded by my formidable foes for too long, I risk losing two games instead of one by leaving my checkers in the outfield without being able to take one off.  That's called a gammon.  If Danny gets all his checkers off of his homefield and I still have one remaining in his, that's a backgammon, hence the name of the game.

Am I finally able to free my soldiers from this mess?  Yes, but not without the onus of being gammoned.  If you think I'm happy about that, just ask Danny.  LOL!  He sure puts up with a lot of competitive spirit from me.

The more we play backgammon, the more I see the parallels to living life fully and with faith that God will rescue us when we are in danger, or are overwhelmed by the challenges we face.  If we don't take risks, we won't succeed.  If we give up hope, all is lost.  If we don't keep trying, we'll never know what might have been.

If God is with us, He will make our ways straight.  We can take risks, we can persevere, and we can have hope because His power and grace will prevail.  Some days, we may be able to take leaps and bounds.  Other days, we will only manage one step forward and two steps back.  But our loving Father knows our hearts, our goals, our dreams.

No foe can ever defeat us when the Lord stands tall and strong within us.

Amen!