Puzzles

I hate puzzles. 

Hate. Loathe—never want to do them.  Even the 24-piece ones that toddlers can do.

It’s always a mystery to me why anyone would do a puzzle for fun.  What does that even mean?

I was that kid who would pound the random pieces that didn’t fit to force it to stick together.

Or, if I finished a puzzle (that one time), and there was one stray puzzle piece missing, I’d lose my mind with frustration.  I’d flip the puzzle and tear it up, like I imagine Jesus flipping tables in the temple.  Except He was Jesus and His response was appropriate to the circumstance—mine, not so much.

Anyways, I hate them.

And YET, so much of life feels like a puzzle. 

There is mystery and nuance in everything.  Even me.  I know myself pretty well—I consider myself relatively self-aware.  YET, I cannot figure out why or how my brain thinks certain things, feels a certain way.  Why I behave the way I do, at times.

It makes me nutty.

I imagine God likes puzzles.  Creating them.  Not to frustrate His kids, but to show how creative He is maybe?  The way He designs our minds—our hearts—our bodies—our relationships—our lives; they are an interwoven, interdependent highway of sorts that He designed.  He designed it for Himself—His glory.  But He also designed it FOR us.  For our delight and enjoyment—and for us to be transformed into the best version of ourselves—to be made like Him.

And just as He is the designer of the puzzle, He is also the puzzle maker.  He is the One, piece by piece, making things fit.  In perfect order, in perfect timing, never misplacing a piece.  Never abandoning the puzzle mid-way. 

I like that. 

The safety of that.

I won’t jack up the puzzle. Can’t.

If I’m honest, though…I often try to sneak in, take over making the pieces fit together.  Inserting myself over what He is in charge of—what He delights to do for me. 

There are certain pieces of my puzzle I don’t trust Him with as much as I want to.  I feel like I know how they should go—where they should fit.  What order things should go in. 

But if I trusted Him to be the puzzle designer and completer, and I trusted the okay-ness of being a puzzle, then maybe I’d stop feeling the obsessive need to take charge. Maybe.

I hate puzzles, after all.  The pressure of making all the things fit together. And He delights in putting it all together. 

So, maybe I should let Him.

Acts 17: 26-27

And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us.