The puzzle of life

Our family worked on a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle off and on over the Christmas break. I’ve been thinking about the puzzle “experience” and how life is like a puzzle in so many ways…

You dump out all the pieces and then look for the straight edge pieces first, because they are supposed to be the easiest.  That could represent your “growing up” years and how you are being “framed” for the rest of your life.

Then comes the trickier pieces, especially if it is an elaborate puzzle like the one we did over Christmas break.  You may sit looking for long periods of time but sometimes you can achieve only 1 piece or 2 pieces. During many seasons of life, you can be plugging along in a routine with not a lot of excitement happening. But you can always be on the lookout for the next, adventure, ministry opportunity, stage of life for you or your children.  When you get up to stretch or be done for that time at the puzzle table, its only from a distance that you can see what you’ve accomplished and say to yourself, “Oh, I did get somewhere in this puzzle!” But it’s also a reminder that you don’t always want to be looking so far ahead that you aren’t seeing what is right in front of you. Enjoy your kids at this time of their lives and watch some of the pieces come together.

As more of the pieces snap into place, you start to see a clearer picture forming and it can be a very satisfying feeling. But then you can be caught off guard by “life happenings” and other distractions. Pieces are not going where you think they should go, or you discover that one you “thought” fit in a certain place really doesn’t go there at all. The busyness of life comes upon you and you can’t “work” on the puzzle for a while and it just sits and gathers dust. In the midst of all the activity, you may even loose a piece here or there, never to be found again. When you are juggling thoughts of furlough, college prep things, work, and just trying to keep up with all the different “things of life”, some stuff may fall through the cracks, and get lost in the shuffle. 

Then, perhaps, for whatever reason, life becomes bearable again and your thoughts are drawn back to the unfinished puzzle and you can start working on it again.  Pieces seem to be coming together faster than ever and you are like, “Wow! This is an awesome picture!” God is really working on me in this area or He has shown me this…. 

You feel like you are getting somewhere on this puzzle, but you are also feeling like you just want it to be done. To be done with the clutter and scattered pieces. But you realize that when you look ahead at something that is in the future, you find it hard to keep focus on the day to day activities. The stress of anticipating the future and balancing the needs of the present can make your thoughts get jumbled up to where you’re not even sure it’s worth all the hard work to see the finished picture.

In spite of all that, you persist, and the puzzle is nearly finished now. Those final plans are being made, the picture is clearer and you can see why God said wait on something or you need to work on this area instead of that. 

You are down to just the last few pieces and you realize that some are missing! That is so frustrating!! You look all around you for the pieces that may of fallen off the table.  You ask people in your family have they seen any pieces lurking about.  You practically tear the house apart trying to find the 1 or 2 pieces that you don’t have.  Then you finally give up and tear the puzzle apart, while muttering I just wasted a month on this worthless puzzle. And in my case, after I threw it in the fireplace and burned it up with some other cereal boxes, my kids found a couple of the missing pieces!

Aren’t you glad God doesn’t throw us away like we would throw a puzzle with missing pieces away?  God keeps working with us and trying to get all the pieces to work together.  When it comes to the end of my life, I pray that God will look at my completed life puzzle and say “Very beautiful daughter of mine. Well done!” Even when life gets distracting and pieces get misplaced or mishandled.  God is always there to pick up the pieces and lay them where they need to go.  

Psalm 139:1,4,5,6,16 (TNIV)

You have searched me, Lord,

and you know me.

Before a word is on my tongue

you, Lord, know it completely.

You hem me in behind and before,

and you lay your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,

too lofty for me to attain.

All the days ordained for me were written in your book

before one of them came to be.

How precious to me are your thoughts, God!

How vast is the sum of them!

Were I to count them,

they would outnumber the grains of sand-

when I awake, I am still with you.