During the pandemic last year, Shirley and I took to doing jigsaw puzzles. Perhaps you did as well. It was a very popular activity while staying inside, as we found out, for more than once we tried to order another puzzle or two and found them to be out of stock. We find doing jigsaw puzzles to be relaxing, one way to keep our minds sharp, and something to do together.
As I have pondered over many of these puzzles, the thought would always come to me that life is like a jigsaw puzzle. There are many different pieces showing small parts of the whole picture. There are pieces with very different colors. There are pieces with very different shapes. As the pieces are fitted together, the final picture begins to become clear. At any stage of assembling the puzzle, however, the image presented can seem rather ugly, even bizarre. Not until the puzzle’s completion does the detail and full beauty of the figure as intended by the artist or photographer become evident.
Every life, yours and mine, is a series of “pieces” being fitted together. Every day is a piece. Every event is a piece. Every decision is a piece. Every person who comes into our lives is a piece of our personal puzzle. Every blessing from God is a piece. Every adversity is a piece. Every book read. Every sermon heard. Every prayer offered. Every good deed. Every kind word. Every failure. All of these and more are coming together to create a picture of your life, and, more importantly, to shape you into the person that you are.
As God (the Designer) works with everyone of us, we often wonder what He is doing. We look for the good, the joy, the blessings. We expect people to do what’s right and to tell the truth. (By the way, those are arguments for the existence of God.) But, as you know, it doesn’t always happen that way. The Preacher wrote: “In the day of prosperity, be happy, but in the day of adversity consider - God has made the one as well as the other so that man will not discover anything that will be after him.” (Continued next time.)