Posted on by intentional4christ

Billions of puzzle pieces

Do you like to solve jigsaw puzzles? Can you imagine solving a 20-piece puzzle without a picture? Pretty easy, right? How about a 100-piece puzzle without knowing what the final product looks like? I guess that just got a tad difficult! Now imagine a jigsaw puzzle with billions of pieces but you were not shown what the final completed picture was. Where would you even start? How would you know what piece fits where?

Yesterday while I was lamenting to someone about what the next big direction of my life was going to be, I had an epiphany: my life is like a jigsaw puzzle and each second constitutes a puzzle piece of my life. So far, over a billion pieces have been put together already and there are so many more pieces to go until the final picture is done. This is where faith and trust take center stage.

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

Hebrews 11:6 NIV

Faith allows us to envision what the next puzzle piece of our life is- allows us to hope beyond the now to a future state; to be assured that the next piece of the puzzle whatever it is will be just the right piece that needs to interlock with the piece before and the piece that will come after. Not all the pieces will be joyful, indeed some will be filled with sorrow, heartbreak, and disappointment- but rest assured, they all fit together to paint the complete picture of your life.

What’s more, even though we do not know the full picture of the sum our lives and we live through life one puzzle piece at a time, there is someone who has the full picture and is actually the Orchestrator of each puzzle piece. Afterall, many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails (Proverbs 19 :21). Scripture encourages us to put our trust in the One who has the master plan for our lives. It says:

Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.

Proverbs 3: 5-6 NLT

Why? because He knows the full picture and knows how the next piece fits into the next and the next. The reality is, even though we think we are in the drivers seat of our lives, there is nothing farther from the truth. Proverbs 20: 24 clues us in:

A man’s steps are from the LORD; how then can man understand his way?

In fact, that is the source of all anxiety and worry: thinking that we can fit together the billions of pieces of our lives without a picture of where pieces are supposed to go. Sometimes if we are lucky, we succeed in fitting just the right piece on “our own” without the help of the master “Puzzler.” More often than not, we pick the wrong piece and try to jam it into a space that it was not designed to fit into. We end up with choices that we regret or with more heartache than we should have had. But thanks be to God who leads us in His triumph and gives us victory through Jesus Christ our Lord! Jesus takes those “wrong pieces” and works them out for our good and His glory sake. This is why we can look back on some of the self-inflicted messes in our lives and they appear to all still be connected to a larger picture. God works out everything back into place within the puzzle. How? Only the Master Craftsman knows! And the best thing we can do for ourselves is to put our trust in His plan- the one that brings us to an expected end and gives us a future and a hope! When you feel overwhelmed with what the next steps of your life should be and you are unsure if that move, that decision, that action is the right one or not, can I encourage you to say this to your soul:

But I trust in You, O LORD; I say, “You are my God.” My times are in Your hands…

Psalm 31:14-15a BSB

Indeed He’s got times and seasons in His hands- in my home we call it the bird’s eye view. He has the bird’s eye view of our lives; he sees the whole picture which is why He alone is the Author and Finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2)! From our first cry to our final breath, He commands our destinies! So friends, will you join me today to trust God for the next step in whatever season of life you are in? The next piece of your life’s puzzle is in His hand.

Yours truly.

Posted on by intentional4christ · 1 Comment

Making peace with the missing pieces

In my last post I shared at length about how sometimes I get anxious and how I am trying to work on letting God “take the wheel” in my life. This week I encountered a situation that left me spiraling again and someone said to me “just sit in the awkwardness”… What a weird piece of advice for someone who stresses about everything! The next day, I caught a few minutes of Steve Furtick’s sermon and he said “we need to make peace with the missing pieces”. That night, I picked up my bible and this is the verse that was on my readings for the day:

This is what the Lord says— your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go. If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river, your well-being like the waves of the sea…”

Isaiah 48: 17-18 NIV

Coincidence? I think not! You see a few days ago, I got so overwhelmed, I was feeling like perhaps praying had outlived its usefulness in my life. I did not even know where to start in the place of prayer so I decided not to bother. I was feeling very discontent with a few things in my life: health of my loved ones, finances, parenting choices, progress in my studies, the state of my career, marriage- everything was under a microscope and I was grossly discontent. This left me feeling defeated and devoid of peace- yes like there are missing pieces in every aspect of my life! And if you know me, I like things neat and tidy and metaphorically wrapped up in a bow, I do not do missing pieces well. In my despair, the scripture above hit me hard and touched me deep…. “I am the Lord your God who teaches you what is best for you and directs you in the way you should go and if only you had listened then you would have had peace like a river and you would have wellness of mind, body , soul and spirit like the waves of the sea”

As I reflected on the root cause of my anxiety and despair, I realized it mostly stems from unrealized expectations, broken dreams, unanswered prayers- pretty much life not going the way I hope and envisioned (which reminds me of my last post about hope. If you have not read it here is the link). Truth is life is messy and that’s just it! We were created from messiness- from the dust of the earth- by a God who did not call us forth from the dust but who got down and dirty in the dust to make us. So whenever life feels messy, who else can you turn to but God?

As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.

Psalm 103:13-14 NIV

As I was walking away from the TV screen pondering over Steve Furtick’s statement about making peace with the missing pieces, he said “has it ever occurred to you that that missing piece is a piece only God can fill?” I have not stopped thinking about that statement in light of everything else I have shared. I know sometimes it is hard to turn to God, particularly when you feel He has disappointed you- by not answering a particular prayer, or leaving your hopes dashed or your dreams unfulfilled. But remember, while all we see are the pieces of our lives and the things that don’t fit, God sees the full picture. Which is why He says, if only you had listened to me, then your peace would have been like a river- in spite of what seems missing in your life because He sees the full picture. For thus says the Lord: “before you were formed, I knew you and from your mother’s womb I spoke your name, see I have engraved you in the palm of my hands and your walls are ever before me (Isaiah 49:1, 16; Jeremiah 1:5). So my question to you is “will you sit still in the awkwardness of life for just a moment longer?”; “will you make peace with the missing pieces of your life by finding peace in the Prince of Peace?”

Yours Truly