The puzzle that I wrote about earlier this month sat mostly untouched on the dining room table for a few weeks. It became obvious that it was not going to solve itself, as in any dilemma in our lives.
It took time. It took effort. It was slow. But every so often, bingo, someone discovered a piece to slip into place.
The biggest problem was believing that indeed all of these pieces had a purpose, nothing missing, nothing random, even in what we could not yet see, even when it seemed to make no sense at all. But the truth is even through all my daily experiences and even in the radical shifting of life's tectonic plates, I don't have to understand how God is working it out. That is what trusting God is all about. Because the reality is that I may not ever realize the purposes or see the whole picture, even when it's done. But God is God. Even then.
God is not a genie who grants instant answers my way. Poof, the puzzle is done. God is not limited to my carefully crafted requests and perfect solutions that don't require His help at all. God does not need my manipulation to help Him out or tweak the results for a favorable public relations image for Him.
He is "The LORD who is there," as it says on the very last line of Ezekiel, a book written in the 500s B.C. while that prophet was living in exile in ancient Babylon. It is the very same book in which 62 times God repeats "that you will know that I am the LORD." In case we didn't get it the first time around, in case we still don't grasp it. Even on the journey, even when we have yet to see anything good from it, even when it is yet a mystery.
Yet is one of my favorite words of God. Because God's timing is always perfect, and mine is not. It is not that the outcome isn't ready. More often, I am not. Waiting is a season of gathering and growing. Ripening is hard work. And sometimes it takes a long time. Not ready yet are words of hope, not wishful thinking, but that on which we can stake our lives.
Even when I have no idea what I am doing, overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the task, God's purposes are already in place and running strong. Faithfulness is driven not by the emergence of the final outcome, but energized by the sticking with God in it. Faithfulness doesn't always know what is ahead. But that doesn't matter to the faithful. A puzzle piece may not fit where I want it to, but takes its strategic (and often unlikely) place in the course of time. "I don't get it" is no reason for despair, but for prayer.
More often than not in working this puzzle with my husband, as I was looking for one piece to fit, I found another that did. One direction led me directly to something I wasn't even seeking. Pieces that did not even appear related, or even part of the same picture, were suddenly aligned in a triumphant aha moment. You'd think there was some kind of design to it. You'd think that God knew what He was doing. Absolutely. We don't even have to imagine that. God is really good at being Who He is.
For awhile, I continued to be amazed, standing behind the chair of my husband. He would sit quietly as if studying the pieces and positions and the way things were. He did not suddenly just see the configuration. He just stuck with it. As for me, I just stared at the pieces, but nothing happened until I began to try, starting off with one little wing, or a smidgeon of color, or a beak, taking an actual step, realizing that it may be part of an entirely different bird in another quadrant. One failed step and then another false move. Nothing seemed to fit. And then realizing it was not the cardinal after all but another exquisite delicate bird whose name I do not know.
Along the way, God brought others to observe and help. God uses the most unlikely people for His purposes, sometimes for just a few minutes, just to connect a piece or two. Or maybe just to have another set of eyes looking at it, bringing a bit of experience and deeper vision to it, or offering words of encouragement. "Ahhh, that is where that one goes." I didn't see it, but she did. That is what fellowship does, even when we tell others "I'm good," in an effort to appear self-sufficient, and we are the ones deprived of the multi-dimensional blessings of being in community.
If life were easy, we wouldn't need to seek God. If the path is going to be that obvious, life would be terribly boring. If I am looking for the easy road, or the big bold six lane Interstate highway, I'm going to miss out on God's way in this.
There is always more than one side to a mystery, to a dilemma, or to a place of desperation. Have you tried turning that piece vertically or even what appears upside down? Am I focused on looking for a new door to open? Or trying to find an exit sign as an excuse to abandon this problem? Or intentionally staying in place and discerning a different picture that is being redeemed?
Some day on the Other Side of life, we will be shocked. "So that is why that happened." The whole picture is not a dim mirror image, but suddenly a reality face to face. It is not that someday all the pieces will suddenly come together. They already fit in an intricate design. It just isn't time yet.
This January, we didn't just give up on the one thousand impossible little pieces. In time, a picture of birds appeared, everything in place, as it should be. Someday, it will be His glory over all the world, as it should be.
The puzzle has been put away in the closet, not out of defeat but in triumph, and time for yet another challenge, another opportunity to seek Him through.
For My thought are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways My ways, says the LORD.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are My ways higher than your ways
and My thoughts than your thoughts.
Isaiah 55. 8-9
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