The Puzzle

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it here or not, but I am an only child. Growing up, it was just my dad, my mom, and me. From the time I was in about 4^th grade on, we lived on a busy street in a neighborhood where there weren’t very many other kids. The closest friend lived about 3 blocks away. Both of my parents worked, so after school, I stayed home by myself for a couple of hours until they came home during the school year and all day most days in the summer. I spent a lot of time by myself.

I’m not at all saying this was necessarily a bad thing. It had its pros and cons. One of the good things that came from being left alone a lot is that I learned to entertain myself. Those were the days before cell phones and internet access, so I actually had to find things to do on my own. I did watch TV some and play video games some (Super Mario anyone?). But more often than that, I did other things. I listened to music a lot (on cassette tapes), I read, I wrote, I played with my toys, and I made up games to play. I knew several different versions of solitaire and even invented ways to play Monopoly and Battleship by myself (I always won!).

Something I have always enjoyed doing when I have time to spend by myself is jigsaw puzzles. I love starting with a bunch of pieces that look like nothing on their own and putting them all together to make a big finished picture. I love the way each piece has to fit in a certain place and if you get something in the wrong spot, the whole puzzle won’t work. I love when there is a missing piece and I have to try several different ones that look like they might fit before I find the right one. I love the excitement of the feeling when you finally find the right piece and it just clicks right into place and fits perfectly.

Over the years, I’ve had the chance to teach lots of kids about doing puzzles, my own kids and students I had when I was teaching. I like that the procedure is the same-sort the “edge” pieces from the “inside” pieces, put together the outside frame of the puzzle, then fill in the middle. If you don’t sort the pieces first, you waste a lot of time digging through to find the edge pieces. Trying to start in the middle is much harder because you don’t have the perimeter to go by the make sure you stay within the boundaries of the picture. It works much better if you do it in order.

Another thing that is very helpful to me when I’m trying to figure out if I have the pieces in the right places is the box. Almost all puzzles come in a box that has the complete picture on the front. If not, then they usually have a paper inside the box with the picture on it. That way, you can look at the piece in your hand, compare all the little details on it with the example picture and see better where it fits into the big picture. Often I will use the picture to help me sort the inside pieces by their coloration to make it even easier to see where they fit.

Sometimes, I really wish God would give me the box for the puzzle of my life. If only I could see how everything was going to play out, making decisions would be so much easier. I would know for sure whether I put each piece in the right place. I could compare the choice I was about to make with the big picture and see whether or not it fit. I wouldn’t have to fear making the wrong choice or moving in the wrong direction. I would know where I was going and what it was going to look like when I got there.

But that’s not the way He does it. God doesn’t show me the whole picture. He gives me just a piece at a time. I think He does this partly because if I saw what was coming in the future, it would scare me to death. If I could see the hard things that were ahead of me, I wouldn’t want to move forward and go through them, even though they are necessary to get me to where I need to be.

 

I was reading in Hebrews 11 yesterday. It’s about faith. The chapter goes through a list of people of faith-Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and others. When I got to the part about Abraham, there was a verse that stuck out to me and got me thinking about puzzles.

 

Hebrews 11:8 says,

“By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.”

That last part is where it really hit me. Abraham obeyed and went even though he didn’t know where he was going. God didn’t reveal the whole picture to Abraham. He only gave him one piece. He told him to GO. And Abraham went. Not seeing how this piece fit into the end result, but trusting that it did.

Too many times in my life, God tells me to do something, to take a step, to put in a piece of the puzzle, but I resist. I want to know why and how it all fits. I want to see what’s coming after this step. I want to see how the picture is going to look at the end before I start to put it together.

But He’s asking me to trust. He wants me to step out and be obedient to what He’s asking me to do, one step at a time, without knowing what’s ahead. That’s called faith. I have to move ahead into what He’s calling me to do and trust that He will make the pieces fit.

Because even though I can’t see the big picture, He can. Not only that, but He is the artist who created the picture from the beginning. He knows exactly how all the pieces fit.

Heavenly Father,

Thank you, Lord, for your wisdom in not revealing to me the whole picture at once. You give me just a piece at a time and ask me to trust you to make it all fit together the way it is supposed to. Forgive me, Lord, for the times I have resisted when you’ve asked me to move because I want to see and control the way things happen in my life. I know that your plan for me is greater than anything I could do on my own. Help me to trust that you see the big picture and that it will be exactly what you created it to be.

In Jesus’ Name, Amen