Ep. 24| God Is the Ultimate Chess Master (And He Never Loses)

What if the worst thing that ever happened to you was actually God setting you up for the biggest breakthrough of your life?

What if the betrayal, the loss, the business collapse—what if all of it was God playing chess 10 moves ahead?

In this episode, Josiah Ryan tells the story of a friend who lost everything the day after his wedding. His business partner—the guy who handled all the client relationships—stole 40 clients overnight. Cut him off from every account. Disappeared with all the revenue. Left him with nothing.

The day after his wedding.

But here's what makes this story incredible: God knew it was coming. And God was already positioning him for something bigger.

This friend had been building software in the background for a year—AI-powered service software that would change the entire digital marketing industry. But he wasn't ready to go all in. He was still running the agency. He was still playing it safe.

Then his business partner screwed him. And suddenly, he had no choice but to trust God and go all in on the software.

One year later, he met the exact person he needed. The guy with the network, the resources, the skills to take his product to the moon. And now? He's building what Josiah believes could be as big as Facebook—specifically for digital marketing agencies.

God is the ultimate chess master. He never loses. And He knows the game better than you ever will.

What you'll learn in this episode:

The true story of a business owner who lost 40 clients overnight—the day after his wedding Why God allows betrayal, loss, and collapse to position you for breakthrough How God used a devastating partnership betrayal to force this entrepreneur to go all in on his calling What it means that "God is the ultimate chess master" and why He's already 10 moves ahead Why you can't see how the game ends until you finish your race The connection between Matthew 6:33 and trusting God's timing in business Why God's plans require you to be faithful even when you don't understand what's happening How to give yourself grace for being human—and why Jesus lived as a human to show you the way Why your worst moment might be the setup for your greatest blessing

If your business is falling apart, if you've been betrayed by a partner, if you've lost clients or revenue or everything you built—this episode will remind you that the game's not over until it's over.

God knows the future. You don't. All you have to do is be faithful and trust that if you honor Him, He will honor you.

Matthew 6:33 — "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."

Subscribe to The Christian Business Podcast with Josiah Ryan and join a community of entrepreneurs who are trusting God's plan even when they can't see the next move.

🎧 Listen & Subscribe:
👉 Spotify → https://open.spotify.com/show/0Q8k55u0WeTC7mepZi98H8?si=4a74c08e182e48dc
👉 Apple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-christian-business-podcast-with-josiah-ryan/id1832524666

📲 Follow Us:
👉 Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/ChristianBizPodcast
👉 X (Twitter) → https://x.com/ChristianBizPod

🎵 Theme music by Transistor.fm

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:14

All right, guys, welcome to another episode of the Christian Business Podcast. I'm your host, Josiah Ryan, and today I'm going to be telling you a story about a friend. I'm super excited to share it with you guys. So without further ado, I want to open this thing up with prayer. So, Lord, get the listeners to this channel, bring them from wherever you want to bring them from to find this show so that they can be blessed. That's truly my prayer for this. And if that means one person, thank you, Lord. If that means 100,000 people, thank you, Lord. Whatever that means to you, I'm so thankful to be sharing this. So thank you for this day, Lord. Be a part of this podcast. We love you so much. Amen. Okay, let's hit it. So I'm gonna tell you guys a story of a buddy of mine who ran through some crazy stuff and uh some amazing things are happening as a result. Okay. So my buddy, I'm not gonna say names, but uh, I got a buddy and uh basically he was running a digital marketing agency. If you guys are not familiar with the digital marketing agency, basically what it means is that it um if you're looking for, you know, uh marketing services for your business, if you need somebody to build a website, if you need somebody to have that website show up in Google, if you need somebody to run, you know, social media ads, these types of things. That's what a digital marketing agency does. All right. So I have a buddy who is running a digital marketing agency. He had a business partner in this agency. Um, my buddy's role inside of this agency is he was pretty much in tar in charge of operations. So think of the guy who was actually building the websites, the guy who was actually ranking the websites in Google, the guy who was actually doing all the service work. That was his division, and that's what he was in charge of. Well, uh his business partner was in charge of client acquisition, client relationships, uh, making sure that the clients stay happy with the services and uh basically the customer service side of things. Okay. So to recap, you got my buddy, he does all the service work, and then you've got his business partner who did all who did all of the customer service stuff. Okay. Here's what gets real, real crazy and actually pretty amazing. So my buddy, he went and he got married, married his wife, and literally the day after the wedding, okay, he's literally waking up. He rolls over, he checks his phone, and the very first thing he sees is all of these notifications in his phone. And basically, all these notifications tell him, hey, you've been kicked off of your clients' accounts. And he's like, What the heck? How did I lose access to all of these client accounts? What happened here? This doesn't make sense. Well, here's what happened: his business partner basically screwed, not basically absolutely screwed him. His business partner, being the guy with the customer contacts, being the customer service person, all this kind of stuff, went ahead, stole all the clients, found somebody else, probably overseas, to quote unquote do the service work. And uh this guy essentially um totally screwed my buddy. And my buddy was sitting here completely like just bewildered, really. He's blown up his business partner's phone. Keep in mind, this is the day after the wedding, all right? Come on, like, can there be crappier time? I mean, of course there could be crappier timing, but you know, here he is just you know blown away at the situation. He's blown up his business partner's phone, can't get a can't get a hold of him, can't track him down, can't do anything. By the way, they had four 40 clients. Um, in terms of revenue, each client pays anywhere between, you know, for most digital marketing agencies, without you know, saying too much, most digital marketing agencies charge anywhere between a thousand and all the way up to five thousand dollars a month for their services, uh, depending on the services and the reasons, and you know, lead gen, there's so many things that go into all of that, but those are kind of the standard prices. Um basically, you can do the math, and my buddy was not out of a little bit of money when he got screwed by his business partner. That's what happened. All right. So he's pretty devastated, and uh he really doesn't know what's gonna happen next. Now, in the back pocket for my buddy, here's the good news he's been coding software that essentially handles a lot of the service work through AI. So it's basically a service as a software, which is new technology. It's really, really crazy. It's actually amazing. It it changed, it's it's absolutely changing everything in the digital marketing age for digital marketing agencies. It's an amazing product that he was working on. All right. I can say that hindsight be in 2020, because there's a twist of the story at the end. So my buddy basically goes on, and uh he he he's totally screwed this day, but he knows that he has this software that he's been working on for a year. He knows that if he can crack the code and if he can get with the right people, if he can just get it in the hands of the right people, this could be a really great product. But at this point, this thing was far from finished. It had all sorts of errors. Really, all he had was a vision, and he solved a year's worth of problems, but there was lots more problems that needed to be solved in order to get his product to market. So he talks to his wife. He's totally screwed, man. I mean, you know, they just lost all their income, all this stuff. Talks to his new wife. Literally, they just got married the day before. And uh, you know, they come up with a plan, you know, over the coming weeks that basically he's gonna go all in on the software, trusting God that it's gonna work out. Okay. He knew that God put this software on his heart and he knew that that was his mission. Instead of getting all crazy, wrapped up, sad, depressed, and all these things, which he felt all of these things. It's okay to feel these things. We're human, all right? If God didn't want us to be human, he wouldn't have made us human in the first place. If he didn't want us to feel things that humans feel, he wouldn't have made us humans in the first place. And if he didn't want us to do things that humans do, well then he wouldn't have made us human. I think we all have to give ourselves a little bit of grace as it pertains to being human. Jesus lived as a human, okay? God came down, put on a human, you know, flesh suit, if we want to call it that, a human suit, really, and showed us the way so that we can have a relationship with God, the creator of all things, right? He was God, he was part of God, but his job was to point to God, and he says that repeatedly through the gospels, okay. But I I just I really have to share that with you guys because I hear so many people that you know start apologizing about their humanity and you know, the sins and all these things and you know, all this shame and guilt that they're wrapped up into. Well, you guys, Jesus knows, and he loves you anyway. In fact, he loved you literally be well before you were even thinking about him. He loved you in all of your sin, all of your human error, all of your humanity. Think about your dogs, okay? And I know I'm going on a segue here, but uh, this is good stuff. So think about your dogs, you guys. What do your dogs do? Well, they run around, they're super sweet, they're they love you and love you and love you and love you. But what else do they do? Well, we as humans, they go ahead, they super stress us out. You know, they poop on our floors and they chew up our shoes and they, you know, do all this stuff that absolutely drives us up the wall and we can't stand it. But guess what? We love them anyway. All right, they're stupid. Dogs are stupid, they don't know what they're doing, they live a dog's life. And I truly believe, you know, that dogs are a wonderful gift to humanity because it reminds us hey, there is a higher level of intelligence. I'll give you an example. My dogs, they have no clue what happens when I go outside and I have to, you know, put food on the table, right? They have no clue what I'm doing, who I'm talking to. They don't even understand the language that I'm speaking. They have no clue what I'm doing, but they just know that every time that I come home, I have a treat for them and I have love and affection. You guys, this is how God is, okay? God, G-O-D, dog, D-O-G. I know that's the English language. I don't usually get into these types of, you know, analogies and all this kind of stuff, but I think there's something to that. And so, you guys, God loves us so much. He knows that we're stupid. He knows that we don't understand his plans, he knows all of the aspects of being human. He lived as a human. And so just give yourself some grace in that. Really, all God wants is the same thing that we want out of our dogs. He just wants a great relationship. He wants us to wiggle our wiggle our tails when he comes home. He wants us to accept the treat. He wants us to go cuddle up next to him, he wants us to be sweet to him. That's all that he wants. Whatever you want out of your dog, that's what God wants out of us. Okay. And sometimes, hey, if you're a work dog and that's the way that God made you and this kind of stuff, well then, you know, put him to work and some of this kind of stuff. But I'm not going to beat a dead horse here. Anywho, so my buddy, he he's got this software in mind. He just lost his agency and he decides to go all in on um the software that he was building. So he's going ahead and he's building this software and he makes the choice. Him and his wife, they sacrifice quite a bit so that he can basically uh spend every waking second building this thing out, not knowing if it's gonna work or not, really. You know, basically all he's doing is just solving problems and, you know, working out bugs and all this kind of stuff. Well, one day my buddy runs into a guy, and uh, it was actually through a side thing because he was sidegging just a little bit just to help out with some of the bills. And uh, you know, he was like a freelancer. And so my buddy meets a guy, and lo and behold, this guy happened to be everything that my buddy needed. Okay, he had a wonderful network of agency owners who could buy this product that, you know, he ended up sharing with them and all that kind of stuff months later and whatever. But uh my buddy met the person who can take his dream and make it a reality. Basically, that's what happened. The guy that he met had the right network, the guy that he met had the right skills, tools, resources to take his idea, get it in front of the people who could benefit the most from it. And now my buddy is off to the races, and I think he's uh probably going to be the most successful person that I maybe have ever met. I truly believe that. I think that my buddy probably has um, well, he's got software that I think is is basically uh as big as Facebook, but applied specifically to digital marketing agencies, which there's thousands and thousands and thousands across the United States, just the United States alone. Um, my buddy is uh he's on it. Basically, he's on the escalator all the way to the moon. Let's just put it that way. Uh, and you know what? It's not an escalator, it's an elevator. So the reason I'm sharing this story with you guys is because God is the ultimate chess master. All right. Here's what I mean by that. When you're playing chess, the people who really know how to play chess, all right, unlike myself, you know, I take a pawn and then maybe I move it and I'm like, yay, I did something. No. People who are really, really good at chess, they plan their moves far, far, far in advance. Seven, eight, ten moves ahead. Okay. These guys know every scenario in their brain. They know that if you do this, I'm gonna do this. Here's what I have to share with you. You guys, God is the ultimate chess master. Okay, he has never lost a game of chess. God knows the game and he knows what's gonna happen better than we will ever understand it. And when I'm saying the game, what I mean is our lives. God knew that my buddy would be better off going through an incredibly painful experience of losing all of his income, losing his business, losing his agency overnight the day after his wedding. I really gave him a fire, really gave him a resolve to bring this project into fruition. And kudos to my buddy. He didn't roll over, he didn't give up. He said, God, I know that you put this thing on my heart. I'm going to follow through diligently, even if I don't understand why today things are happening the way they are. All right. God is the ultimate chess master. My buddy knew that he was going to find the right person to bring his product and his idea to life a year following that incident. God knows my buddy deeply and intimately because my buddy has a relationship with him. And now my buddy, you know, fast forward a year later when all this crazy stuff happened to him. Well, now all of his wildest dreams and wishes are pretty much coming true. And it's it's amazing to uh to witness, let me put it that way. I'll I'll tell you guys, I'm involved with it. Okay, I'm I'm the guy that uh that is basically working with him to to make everything happen. And that is no fruition of my own. That's nothing that I did. It's um God really brought us together at the right time. For those of you who know my story, I was similarly going through a similar time to him, and I'm not gonna beat a dead horse here because I talk about it pretty much every episode. But um, it's amazing. It's truly amazing, you guys. God knows the future. We don't. All we have to do is be faithful and trust that if we honor him, this is something I've been saying, right? Jesus talks about my father's business. All right. What is the father's business? It's taking care of people, it's loving people, it's doing the things that Jesus told us to do. When I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink. When I was hungry, you gave me something to eat. When I was in prison, you came and visited me, right? These types of things. These are the things that Jesus tells us, right? These are this is the father's business. And you know, in Matthew 6, verse 33, God basically tells us, I want you guys to go look it up on your own, but God basically tells us that if we, if we as believers are taking care of the Father's business, you can bet that he's gonna take care of ours. So I love you guys. Man, I'm so excited. I can't wait for this episode to go live. I think that it's gonna help a lot of people. If this ministered with you, if this was a good episode, if you feel like there's somebody in your life who needs to hear this, maybe their life is completely falling apart right now and they don't know why, you know, their business stuff is just not working out, whatever, please share this episode with them. I do this totally for free. God put this on my heart a number of years ago, and it wasn't until recently that we actually started uh getting consistent with the posting, and now we're starting to get lots of views and stuff. That's great. My intention is just to honor God with what he gave me through this podcast. So if it's interesting, please share it with somebody who could benefit um and share this story with them. The fact is, the game's not over until it's over, and none of us knows how the game ends until we we finish our race, man. You gotta you gotta get to the end to know how this thing really turns out. And I just want to encourage you guys, if you feel like the weight of the world is falling down on your shoulders, Jesus is there for you. And if you feel like nothing's gonna work out, dude, you're just at the part of the game where you don't know how this thing's gonna end. Because I promise you, you follow God, it's gonna work out. I promise you it will. That doesn't mean that everybody's going to have, you know, this crazy product that goes straight to the moon or anything like that. But what it does mean is that God takes care of all of us. All right. And if we honor God, especially as Matthew 6, 33 tells us, if we honor the Father's business, he's gonna honor ours. Okay. So I love you guys. I hope everybody's having a great day. And uh, if you like the content, I got tons of bangers, man. This is all the kind of stuff that we talk about uh as we go, and I'd love to serve you guys and walk with you as we do it. So God bless everybody. Have a great day. Thanks.