The Three Queens of Katwe
A journey to true love
In this episode, we consider another guest post from 2016.
13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:13 They say Katwe is a place of fighters, a place where survival is a game of wit, grit, and heart. I did not grow up in Katwe, but I learned to fight my own battles not with fists or chess moves, but with three commandments that took up residence in my heart. I call them the Three Queens of Katwe. They were not women, but three profound commandments of love.
Like chess queens, they are powerful, unpredictable, and impossible to ignore. It’s an absolute requirement for the Christian journey. As a child, I believed I could master them easily. Here I tell the story of my chessmanship with these queens of hearts.
The Three Profound Commandments of Love
Growing up, there were three commandments of the Bible I was made to memorise. I wasn’t bothered by the third. If I should be concerned, it was with the first two. The first is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. The second is like unto the first, love your neighbour as you love yourself (Mathew 22:37-39), and the third is husband love your wife as Christ loves the church and gave himself for it (Ephesians 5:25). Later in life, I gave them my tag, the three profound commandments of love, aka my Three Queens of Katwe. There is something that amazes me and, at the same time, bothers me about these queens. They demand something beyond the ordinary from anyone who is concerned with them. As a child, I was not particularly concerned with any of them. I was only excited memorising them. This does not mean that I didn’t fight or quarrel with other kids — I did. But I wasn’t told I needed the “love your neighbour as yourself” command. As Children, we lived a free life. We fought almost daily and reconciled quickly as well. Years crept by, I wasn’t fighting and quarrelling every day, only occasionally and yet I couldn’t reconcile whenever I had a clash with someone. Then the second commandment became a concern. I discovered that it was almost like the most difficult thing anyone could do. Questions sprang from their hideouts that I couldn’t address. I supposed my church leaders were keeping this commandment, so I admired them. I wish I could also. I recall a preacher saying, You have to take care of the second and third, then the first won’t be a struggle. Honestly, I struggled, failing at my best efforts. I just tried loving, putting on a good smile with the guys on the street, showing some courtesy, throwing greetings to passersby and helping with some chores at home. It was hard. I knew my heart wasn’t in it. I wish it were. There was nothing I could do about it. How do I force my heart to love others? I wanted to be me. Why should I give people the impression that I love them when I didn’t care a bit? I was sick with the ‘love your neighbour’ thing and even worse ‘…as yourself’. How on earth will it be possible? One moment I was smiling and helping some kid, the other I was cursing and beating up the child. Not to mention the resentment, anger, malice, strife, and all that. How would God want us to be Christians, go to heaven, and give us such a commandment? I was frustrated.
Midgame Struggle — The Flesh, the Spirit, and the Turning Point
After a Sunday service, I went to my pastor. He preached on love. He said the command to love is not for non-Christians. Unbelievers (sinners) can’t love. They don’t have the power to love. ‘You mean I’m a sinner? I’m not, of course. ’ This love thing is the only challenge… I keep the rest of the commandments.
Me: Good morning, pastor. I came to see you about something.
Pastor: Bro. Bob, what brings you?
Me: I don’t seem to understand the passage that says love your neighbour as yourself (I said bluntly).
Pastor: How do you mean, you don’t need any interpretation for that? You should know it.
Me: I know it, sir, but I don’t understand it. I mean, I struggle to keep that commandment, and there are lots of things I do that defile it.
Pastor: I presume you’re born again. Every one of us still faces the difficulty you’re facing. I understand the angle you are coming from perfectly. Don’t let it put doubt about your assurance of salvation. The power to love is in every one of us who is born again. We have to exercise that power. Let me tell you, the flesh fights against the spirit, and there are lots of struggles: the struggle against the flesh, against sin, against the media, against self and environment. All of these things war against the soul, and that’s where the struggle is. Apostle Paul said, ‘I beat my body and put it under subjection…’ that means he forces his body against its will. The sinner does not struggle to keep the commandment of God; he does not simply keep it, and can’t. For a sinner, there is no struggle; he swims in sin, he enjoys sinning. He is like a fish in the river. It is only Christians who struggle because this flesh we put on is a weight. So you must understand, your struggle is not peculiar to you.
Me: I don’t think it’s the same thing, pastor. I can say I don't have the power to love. I only want to love because I’m aware and familiar with the passage.
Pastor: I clearly understand you, now. It’s a case of inability, not willingness. Let’s look at it like this. When a sinner hears God’s word, when the word penetrates his heart, he is pricked and wants to react to that word. At that point, the struggle is so great, and because there is no life in him yet, he hasn’t gotten the power to do the will of God. It is like that point when Christ shouted with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus…’ Lazarus heard his name being called under the authority of Jesus, but not until the next phrase followed ‘…come forth,’ he was able to leave the tomb. It is also like Nicodemus, who heard Christ speak and saw the signs and wonders, was pricked, but he was not yet born again. So he went privately to see Jesus, where he was told, ‘You must be born again’.
The Power to Love and the Journey Beyond
So bro. Bob, what I’m saying is that you must be born again. There is an experience you can’t have until you cross that thin line, and that difference is huge, the pastor said. That was the checkmate statement. At this point, without many words, I realise I have been wrong. I was in the Christian community for so long, doing ‘so much’. I weren’t sure I was born again, in fact, I was not because my life, as I know best to myself, I couldn’t tell. Who would have thought I wasn’t born again with my pius regalia and zeal. I didn’t want the pastor to notice my countenance, so I hung my head down to control my facial expression and let the tears dry. After the pastor had finished speaking, I felt a scale peel off my eyes, and suddenly I could see. I couldn’t argue that I was a sinner. My amazement was that all these years I have been among Christians in school, church and at home and yet…
Me: Thank you, pastor, for this timely exposition. (I left without another word).
As soon as I stepped out of the pastor’s presence, I hurried home. The tears won’t let me get home. I felt a hole bored through my heart. My heart was bleeding like the nails pierced into Christ's palms; I felt the same in my heart. My bed was soaked with tears — “could my tears forever flow?”. I knew it was not a flash of lightning experience. I knew it had come to stay. Something had happened to me, I was sure. All these years I was alive in morality, now I was crucified.
Many years have passed, and the love of Christ and the power to love still reside in me. It is the winning piece. There is a huge difference in crossing the thin line from religion to Christ. Love is not a rule to be kept; it is a life to be lived.
Without the life of Christ, the first commandment feels impossible, the second unbearable, and the third unreachable. But once you cross that line, love stops being a duty and becomes a nature. And when love is your nature, obedience is no longer a burden—it is a joy.
Hold on, we are not done yet. There is yet another commandment of love to consider – the third one: husbands love your wives as Christ loves the church and gave himself for it. But before that, there is more discussion on how love lifted me. See you in the coming posts.
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