I think with chess as with everything, marketing is the main issue.
Frankly, you need to get over yourself. It might sound harsh, but that's seriously what it means [1 Corinthians 10:31].
God has allowed hard things in your life so you can show the world that your God is great and that knowing Him brings peace and joy, even when life is hard.
If God cared only about religious activities, then the Pharisees would have been heroes of the faith.
People who are obsessed with God are known as givers, not takers. Obsessed people genuinely think that others matter as much as they do, and they are particularly aware of those who are poor around the world (James 2:14-26).
Churchgoers all across the nation say the Holy Spirit has entered them. They claim that God has given them a supernatural ability to follow Christ, put their sin to death, and serve the church. Christians talk about being born again say that they they were dead but now have come to life. We have become hardened to those words, but they are powerful words that have significant meaning. Yet when those outside the church see no difference in our lives, they begin to question our integrity, out sanity, or even worse, our God. And can you blame them?
A relationship with God simply cannot grow when money, sins, activities, favorite sports teams, addictions, or commitments are piled up on top of it.
I'd always been scared of people with tertiary education and high intellects in case they found me wanting. I thought they viewed me as just a welder who knew a few jokes.
I think people are very cynical with actors trying to tell them what to believe in, or lobbying for any kind of changing of government policy. Even I get cynical about it. Like, Why is Sharon Stone telling me this? And there's just something annoying about having Charlie Sheen tell me, "It's your responsibility to vote," in an admonishing way on MTV.
No matter how successful you get, always send the elevator back down.
On Laurence Olivier as Hamlet in a 1948 film: Olivier's idea of introspection was to hood his eyes, dentalize his consonants and let the camera circle his blondined head like a sparrow looking for a place to deposit its droppings.