Chess, History, and True Identity: Storming Normandy or Leaving Dunkirk?

by Justin Forman, Executive Director, Faith Driven Investor and Faith Driven Entrepreneur

What I Learned From Senior Year History Class

Chess champ. History nerd. 

For more than a few decades I’ve been able to keep these achievements and interests unpublished on my LinkedIn Profile and Instagram Account. 

But in the spirit of “leading with a limp”, I thought now was the time to come forward with full transparency. In seventh grade, my teacher, who apparently watched some Hollywood movie and dreamed of discovering a local version of the next Bobby Fischer, bought my entry fee into a school chess tournament. 

After beating a dozen upperclassmen, I earned the dubious honor of being handed an obnoxiously tall trophy during a school-wide assembly the following week.

In between playing basketball and soccer, I was also that feisty freshman who quietly found his way from the courts and pitch to sitting in senior history class. It was there, in what too often is a throwaway class taught by the head football coach, I found something that captured my heart. 

For an hour a day, I was held captive. I found myself entranced by long-ago and well-worn stories of political intrigue, catastrophic events, and questionable decision-making. For a kid who wasn’t even old enough to drive, much less know about this dusty subject matter, it all seemed so new and relevant.

Fast forward three decades later and I’d argue that senior history class is up for a rebrand. 

Too often it seems like history is viewed as a crazy, underappreciated, less successful cousin of a math class. 

We’re learning a set of facts—dates, places, and names to remember lest they be repeated. And yet, it’s so much more than that. 

As the History Channel boldly claims:, 

“These are … the stories of our world … the story of us.”

Storming Normandy or Leaving Dunkirk?

World War II-era stories for some reason strike such a chord with me. 

That time in the world seemed like it was defined by a season with little room for complacency. Everyone engaged, choosing sides. Risking and re-risking everything, everyday. 

Most of us have seen the epic major motion picture  “Saving Private Ryan.” Not just a movie, but I would argue a masterclass bringing the gruesome and harrowing story of taking the hallowed beaches of Normandy to the big screen.

But fewer of us perhaps have appreciated the quiet significance of a more recent film, “Dunkirk.” 

The Dunkirk Evacuation involved a last-minute rescue of over 300,000 Allied soldiers who were trapped by the Nazis near the beaches of Dunkirk, France, in the summer of 1940.

Saving hundreds of thousands of soldiers from the beaches in a costly battle trying to escape… the perspective of trying to hold on a little longer to what will certainly be lost… so a few more might make it across.

For me, this movie was a stark reminder of the grounding leadership principle: define the situation and strategy before getting to tactics. 

When I think of the conversations around Faith Driven Entrepreneurship and Faith Driven Investing I often wonder what situation we are in?

Are we trying to take the beach of Normandy and advance on an empire of evil to make way for a new world?

Or are we fighting a measured, intentional retreat, holding a perimeter of hope that might allow for others to be saved? 

A Tough Forecast

I’ll admit, I’m confused. I wonder if the apostles and the early church felt the same? Did they think they were going to see 2,000 more years before Christ's return? Or did they think—amidst martyrdom in the colosseum—that Christ’s return is imminent. 

Surely the world must have felt pretty dark. 

Rampant sexual immorality. An empire on financial collapse. A persecution of the church not in a distant realm of social media, but regular death and destruction right in front of them. With stakes and fire, lions and wolves tearing at brothers and sisters, it must have been heartwrenching. 

I don’t know about you, but that history seems to be repeating itself. And today, it seems less like we’re storming an enemy.

It sure feels a lot more like Dunkirk. 

We find ourselves stuck and surrounded. Scraping along the bottom of morality, war, bribery, and instability. Courts, Congress, and businesses being weaponized as accomplices. It's a tough forecast.

Grounded in Identity 

Earlier this summer I had the chance to spend a few weeks in Israel. We were capturing the story of an Arab, Palestinian, Israeli Faith Driven Entrepreneur. 

Identity is a simple yet complex thing in Nazareth.  

I was struck by one of the things we talked about at lunch … 

“If you truly understand that your identity starts with being a child of the king. Then you’re grounded in the idea that this land, or any land for that matter, is not your home. And if you’re just passing through, then why fight so much over the land?”

Powerful truths spoken in the same land where Jesus first tread. The word Sojourner has never become more alive than in that moment. If so little can be made of something that has been fought over for so long, then what are we fighting to protect?

Our nationality, land, car, home, title, social media, or bank account. That big merger, client acquisition. Everything is actually worth a whole lot less than we make it when we consider the enormity and eternity of God and his kingdom. 

As God is granting favor, as he is opening up doors for Faith Driven Entrepreneurs and Investors around the globe to do incredible things for his glory, let’s stay grounded while still lifting our eyes up to the heavens.. 

He gives us gifts. God answers our prayers. He provides pools of clear, quenching water in  the desert. 

But as much as we celebrate. Let’s also be reminded that what we produce are nothing more than makeshift forts. They’re cobbled together by piers and beams to make temporary safe harbors. 

And yet, what we are building together with God just might hold out just long enough to bring more to the other side.