The Jigsaw Puzzle

Are you a big fan of jigsaw puzzles? Many people enjoy taking a box full of cut up pieces of cardboard with a part of a picture on it and figuring out how they fit together to form a complete picture. The ones we give to our little kids may have ten or twenty pieces so they can get a concept of shape and completion recognition. Then there are the ones for the adults, which can range from little ones with 500 pieces up to complicated monsters with thousands. Personally, they are not my friends. I have put them together with helping friends and by myself. As far as I am concerned, I don’t have to submit myself to that level of frustration again. I remember the last one I tried to work. It was a photo of a bunch of eggs in an incubator with a heat lamp shining down on them. The only variation was the amount of red light on the eggs from the heat lamp. After three weeks, I gave up in utter frustration at a puzzle not even a third completed, boxed it up and gave it to a friend. A few days later, she told me she really enjoyed the puzzle and it was difficult. She said it took her almost four hours to complete!

Life is like those jigsaw puzzles. Now, isn’t that a nice-sounding, obvious cliché? When we get dumped into this world, we are a loose collection of pieces, somehow moving in the same direction and at the same time. Over time, the pieces start to be arranged to make the beginnings of the picture. When we learn to walk, some of the pieces are set; when we start to talk, still more. As we begin our education, more pieces are added to the whole. Down through the years, more and more of the puzzle is added. The puzzle may not be completed until the very end, but as we look over the puzzle, we may see that a piece of it is missing. It is piece near the center and it is vital to the formation of the picture. A search through the other pieces on the table does not find it and neither does a search of the floor and under the furniture. An exhaustive search still yields the same result: it is missing. Without it, the puzzle can never be completed. At last, a search of the box itself shows that it was intentionally stuck to the interior of the box. It was not designed to fall out with the other pieces of the puzzle, but to be added deliberately. It is only after that piece is inserted, that the center is finished.

So what is that piece that was so special, so unique? Remembering that the puzzle represents our life, that piece represents the presence of God in our life. While God is part of us from the moment of our conception, it is he who breathes life into us; it is still a part that has not been recognized for its utter importance. Until we find God for ourselves and intentionally insert him into our lives, we cannot be complete. Without God in our lives, the picture is flawed and there is a hole that can be felt.

How about you? Have you searched and found that central piece? Have you maneuvered it and set it firmly into the center of your being, or have you just kind of nudged it around so that it sort of fits. Have you made God a snug fit in the way you conduct yourself and your relationship with him, or have you left it haphazardly alone?