A piece of the puzzle

We have a ton of puzzles in my house. Most of my children loved putting them together when they were younger and our son with Autism goes through times of obsession with puzzles. Lots of puzzles, though, mean lots of puzzle pieces. I can't tell you how many puzzles I have thrown away because we could not find just one piece. I refuse to have puzzles with a missing piece. It's one of my core values. To spend that much time on a project and then not be able to complete it because a single part is missing is just too much for me to handle.

But tossing puzzles because you can't find the last piece often means that as you put together another one you end up with an extra piece that doesn't fit the puzzle you're working on. Ever tried to go through a box of puzzles in an attempt to figure out which puzzle this one little tiny piece goes to? Frustrating. Exhausting. Aggravating. Depressing.

And that's exactly how I feel when I look at the individual pieces (events) of my life.

I read this morning from Acts 14 where Paul and Barnabas preach from town to town. At one stop they preached and healed a crippled man who had never walked. When the town's people heard about it they believed the two of them were "gods" and wanted to worship them. Paul and his companion tried to stop them, shouting and telling them there were just ordinary men. Then some Jews from another town showed up and "won the people over" to the point of a mob and Paul was stoned to death and dragged outside the city. But the believers prayed and he got up and went back into town.

Here are the pieces:

• Paul was trying to preach the Good News about faith in the resurrected Jesus.
• Paul healed a crippled man.
• The town's people believed they were gods.
• Offerings and sacrifices were made to them (or attempted).
• The people were then convinced that Paul was worthy of death.
• Paul was stoned and left for dead.
• Paul came back to life and entered the city.

Taken separately each of these individual events leave you with very different feelings.

Great joy to have people receive the message and be healed. Great dread to be considered a god. How anxious they must have been keeping the people from worshiping them instead of Jesus Christ. Great fear as Paul faced a terrible death by stoning. And how awesome it must have been to see Paul alive again!

By themselves the single events/pieces of your life can go from one extreme to the other. An incredible high to be used by God to a drastic low when something bad happens (since we often think that doing what God wants gets us "blessed" instead of cursed). But looking at the pieces of our lives as only a part of the whole picture should give us a much more even-tempered understanding. So the highs aren't too high and the lows aren't too low.

Taken alone, the pieces of our lives are hard to figure out. Why is God doing this? Why did He allow this to happen? This piece where everything looks great doesn't fit with this piece where everything is horrible. We just can't get a sense of the picture looking at the piece. So I need to reserve judgement. Hold off on my predictions. Not assume that each piece is a complete story in itself... because it isn't. Only as I see the pieces of my life coming together can I truly get a feel for what my life is all about and what God is doing through it and in it.

We need to see both the individual events of our lives and the picture God has been creating. Seen together, you're life is an inspiring picture of God's faithfulness. Taken one at a time, life just doesn't make sense. Let the pieces come together.