Putting Our Pieces Together (10/11/2023)

Yesterday, I heard from a reader who shared an analogy for our journeys in faith (Did I ever mention that I just love to get e-mails from readers?). She’s a jigsaw puzzle enthusiast who realized the similarities between putting puzzles together and making sense of our journeys. She wrote: Sometimes we have a piece, and we think we know where it goes, but try as we might, it doesn’t fit. Other times, by pure luck we find the right piece. She told me that I was free to use her analogy if I ever wanted to do so. And today, I am, because it fits perfectly. And I thank Jean for her generosity; I thank her for being my companion along the way, for sharing some “trail wisdom” with me.

As I unpacked her short but deep insight, I thought of many times I was sure I was on the right path, but time and grace showed me that I needed to adapt, to turn, to change, to try something else. One of my earliest such realizations concerned prayer. I was sure I needed prayer. I told myself I would pray in the morning and along the way. But I found that mornings with 3 toddlers was anything but While I said many prayers such as “LORD, help me!” it wasn’t the type of stillness in the LORD that I was seeking. I was clearly distracted often from my prayer by the needs of my children. And so, I resolved to get up an hour earlier than the other members of my household; and so began my early morning appointment with my LORD.

Another example of thinking I had the right piece is the day I was leading a retreat for women. I had prayed for insight and inspiration, I had planned, I had prepared handouts. But as the day arrived, everything started to unravel. I realized I had, in my enthusiasm, ran ahead of the LORD. The plan I’d made was my own, not the LORD’s. Thankfully, the LORD thumped me, and I realized my mistake. I went back to reliance on the LORD for direction. It was a wonderful day, in the end, a day that was Spirit-led rather than all about me. And that experience helped me to realize that often the wrong choice has to do with my own ego, my own desire to do it my way. The lesson to humbly set aside my first choice and try again prayerfully is one of the great rewards of the journey.

And then, as Jean reminded me in her analogy, there are times when the right piece just seems to appear at our fingertips. I like to call those moments providence, proof of the LORD’s power and presence at work in our world, at work in our lives always. They are those grace filled moments, that if we ponder our days, we recognize it wasn’t us who found the way. It reminds me of the saying from Isaiah that I quoted yesterday: Isaiah 30:21 – “While from behind, a voice shall sound in your ears: ‘This is the way, walk in it.’”

Life in Christ, with Christ, and through Christ is like putting the pieces of a puzzle together. There is so much we know from the teaching of Christ found in the Gospels as well as the example of our LORD shown to us through His actions including His selfless sacrifice upon the cross for us. He promised “I am with you always.” And one piece of the puzzle we must get right is that piece, accepting Christ and knowing that He is trustworthy, that He is “the Way and the Truth and the Life.” Another piece we cannot do without is the Spirit, sent to guide us, to grace us. Both lead us to love of the Father and one another. Together, these form the border of our lives within which the rest unfolds, connecting piece by piece.

As we journey in faith, buoyed by hope, and fueled by love, let us commit to openness to the guidance of all-present LORD. Let us humbly accept and cooperate with the grace and transformative love that flows from our all-loving LORD. And let us open ourselves to being formed along the journey: informed by the WORD, conformed to Christ through grace, transformed into the ones we are created to be by the LORD’s love and our love of the LORD with our whole being and love of one another seeing our LORD within others.

Until tomorrow, let us all love well.