The Puzzle

01/07/2005

Is life like a puzzle? Do the puzzles of our lives get more complicated as the years go on? Do we start out as infants with perhaps ten pieces in our puzzle, easily putting the pieces together as we match the shapes and the colors to fit in beside other shapes and colors? When we are twenty, does our puzzle of life contain more in the range of 20,000 pieces, complicating things even more, making it harder to match things up, confusing us as to what goes where and why in our lives?

How about when we’re fifty—and our puzzle contains perhaps 500,000 pieces? Where do we even begin to make sense of it? Do we sort through the colors that are similar and group them together, then look for shapes that fit into each other, trying and re-trying them in different places until we find a good fit? And what do we do about missing pieces, or pieces that look like they match some other puzzle completely when there seems to be no place for them in our life’s puzzle anymore…

In thinking about this, I was recalling a story my sister just told me when we were out together the other day. She said they had a great Christmas puzzle of the Nativity scene. The kids loved playing with it each year as Christmas came around. It was made of wood, and they really enjoyed it until the wooden star turned up missing. She searched and searched for it, unable to find it, but she still held onto the puzzle hoping to eventually find the missing piece. Finally, the day came when she decided to throw the puzzle out. The star was not to be found and the puzzle just seemed so incomplete without the star. She thought of donating it to the Good Will, but then thought better of it. Who would want a Christmas Nativity puzzle with no star--so in the trash it went. Of course you can probably guess what happened--within about a month, she found the missing star… In just hearing this story I felt horrible, but there was nothing to be done. The puzzle was gone. It was one of those ARGHHHH, moments!

What do we do about those moments in our lives? What do we do with the pieces that just don’t seem to fit anymore? What do we do about the pieces that aren’t so pretty, or are very painful to look at? What do we do with our life’s puzzle when there is a piece missing? Just a single piece? Do we search for it until we find it or do we just throw away what is left of our lives by trying to survive each day with a hole inside of us--one that will never be filled because nothing fits into that empty place quite the way it is supposed to?

My sister could have searched and searched through a thousand boxes of puzzles, looking for another piece to fit in where the star belonged. She may have even come close to filling it with something, some shape that seemed to fill the spot correctly, but still the color and the design would have been mismatched. Only if she had found the same exact puzzle would the new star have worked in their family’s Christmas puzzle. It had to be cut from the same mold, painted with the same colors and meant for the same purpose as the original star for it to have worked.

Do we spend our lives looking through “other boxes” for the missing pieces of our lives? Do we even know what we are looking for most times? Are we even aware that we are looking, or do we just think we are taking care of necessary tasks in our day…any task we can think of that will keep us occupied from noticing that anything is missing at all?

Just coming out of the Christmas Season, I have learned some new terminology, and confirmed with others that this expression is used by more than just the person who shared it with me. What I learned is called “Retail Therapy.” Now, not being a shopper myself, I have a bit of a struggle understanding this, but I am close to a lot of people who understand this idea quite clearly. If something needs to be done and you don’t feel like doing it, you go out for a little “Retail Therapy.” If the day has been hard, if you’re just looking for something to do, if you’ve had a fight with your spouse, if life has just been cruddy lately, a little “Retail Therapy” can do wonders for the short term…the problem arises when it wears off, which is quite quickly, and you have to go again for more Retail Therapy.

I have what could be described as a Retail Therapy Phobia…when others are out shopping their little hearts out, filling their bags with all kinds of goodies, I don’t even want to be there! When I do go, I can be found sitting in a chair, waiting…and waiting…while those I’m with look through clothes or any number of other items until they find exactly what they “need.” I’m actually a great person to have along if you don’t want to carry your bags with you all day. I’ll sit in a comfortable chair, read a book and allow you to bring your purchases to me to watch over them while you head out to look for more items in the mall that are calling to you! I guess the closest I come to Retail Therapy is when I’m in a bookstore. That can be a dangerous place for me!

Now, I know most of the people who I love and who love to shop mean no harm to themselves or anyone else. It is just what they do, and they do it well. In fact, I use these people from time to time to inform me as to what’s out there, sometimes even asking them to pick up an item or two for me. I love it if I don’t actually have to go!! Retail Therapy shoppers can be very helpful to those of us with the “Phobia” and I appreciate that. What causes me to question all of this and be concerned about it though, is hearing their tales of why they are out shopping in the first place, much more than what they are shopping for. Some have been very honest with me in describing Retail Therapy, and it has been quite interesting and even disturbing, which brings me back to our missing puzzle piece…are those addicted to Retail Therapy throwing away a big part of their life because they are searching for a piece of their life that is missing, and what does that missing piece look like? What shape is it? How important is it to our lives?

These are not easy questions to answer, or are they? A friend was recently telling me about a fountain she was enjoying one day. A beautiful fountain that was in the shape of a column up the center and then the water spilled out of the top onto all the rocks and crevices around its base. It was a wonderful place to sit and think and pray and find the peace of God that gets so easily lost in today’s hectic-paced world. As she shared this story of the fountain experience with me, we knew there was a lesson here about the Living Water talked about in the Bible. When our lives are centered on Jesus Christ, His Living Water pours out and flows onto all the other places in our lives, covering all the rocky places, filling up all the dark crevices, bringing us a peace through all things that cannot be explained with human wisdom.

…God deliberately chose things the world considers
foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise.
1 Corinthians 1:27 (NLT)

All the commercials, all the ads, especially during the month of December, show us all the things that will make our lives complete. Ohh, how our wish list grows, especially for the kids! They get so excited and they start making their list for Santa, and talking with Grandma and Grandpa on the phone, describing in detail just what they would like. How fun it is for us as parents, as grandparents, to see the kids so happy when they tear off the wrapping paper and discover their wish has come true! We’ve all been there! We loved getting up on Christmas morning and seeing all the presents Santa left under the tree, and the shiny new bike with the horn exactly as we asked for. It’s almost more than we can bear! It all makes us so very happy!

But is that the missing piece…?

“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and
no mind has imagined what God has prepared
for those who love him.”
1 Corinthians 2:9 (NLT)

As adults, maybe we received that shiny new car with the big red bow, just like we’ve seen in the commercials. Jim and I sat and watched a Christmas parade a few weeks ago and when the 1956 Thunderbird convertible went by, I let Jim know that that was the car I wanted for Christmas! Of course, he laughed…okay then, could I just have the red bow? As adults, we have our wish list too, even if we don’t write it all down. Most times as wives, we’re just hoping that our husband’s can read our minds!

But is that the missing piece…?

“The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise,
that they are worthless.”
1 Corinthians 3:20

The missing piece we are all searching for, even if we haven’t yet realized it yet, is the Living Water of Jesus Christ that fills all the empty places inside. It is this piece of God, this peace of God through His Living Water that nourishes our soul as nothing else can. We can have 499,999 pieces out of the 500,000 pieces of our life’s puzzle, but if we are missing this one important piece of God, our lives will never be complete. If we get so busy that we ignore the filling of the Holy Spirit in our lives, then Retail Therapy might be the therapy we will choose and we will shop till we drop, wondering why it does not satisfy…red bow or no red bow…

We who have the Spirit understand these things,
but others can’t understand us at all.
1 Corinthians 2:15 (NLT)

When we fully realize the piece/peace that is missing in our lives, when we have taken the time to search for it and desire it, our puzzle will be completed by God. He will place His Holy Spirit inside of us for the first time, or perhaps fan into flame the Spirit that is already living within us, and we will be truly satisfied. We will have been reborn into God’s family, or simply welcomed back home after wandering off for a while. When we find this piece/peace, some of us will change so quickly, those around us will be amazed-- some of us will change day by day, year after year, until we look back one day and see how far we’ve come. For most of us, the changes that occur from the inside out are a long process because there are so many ways that God grows us through the years…there are many tests, trials, tears. There is a lot of joy, laughter and fun. All of it combined makes for a full life when it is a life centered on Christ. He is the “star” that has gone missing and when He is found, everything is within our reach.

Everything belongs to you: Paul and Apollos and Peter;
the whole world and life and death; the present and the
future. Everything belongs to you, and you belong to
Christ, and Christ belongs to God.
1 Corinthians 3:21b-23 (NLT)

Can you imagine those presents under the Christmas tree…life and death, the present and the future, everything that belongs to God belongs to us when we believe? How awesome is that?

As I write this I hear “Silent Night” being sung on the TV in the other room. It reminds me how I was able to sing that song for the first time in a long time without breaking down this Christmas. That was a gift that God gave me under my “Christmas Tree.” The reason being, God gave me the gift of life and death…and I saw it, I picked it up, I unwrapped it and I embraced it, over time! He has promised those who believe in the birth of His Son, the death of His Son, the resurrection of His Son--life everlasting. The gift I unwrap each day now is the gift of seeing my own son again in heaven one day. Is there any greater gift that I could receive this Christmas and each day I live? I think not.

Under the tree of every believer is the gift of the present and the future. How exciting is that? That’s better than any convertible Thunderbird no matter what the year! When we believe in the gift of God’s Son, each day is filled with the power of God. Because of that power, we can enjoy each day fully and look forward to the future God has planned for us. We can watch God work out the details of our lives, miraculous details that too many miss. It’s sort of like watching a Raider game on a 55-inch High Definition TV (as I did on Christmas day) compared to an 8-inch black and white set that is up in the corner of a smoky room crowded with very loud “patrons.” Oh, you might see the game, you might catch the score from time to time, but there is so much that is missing when comparing the two. On the 55-inch High-Def TV, you start to see things you never saw before! It’s like you are there, on the field, almost a part of the game but not risking any of the injuries! It’s wild! Others in the room are seeing it also, there are comments of “Wow!” because they are seeing things they have never seen before. That can be the life of a believer--that should be the life of a believer--that is what makes the life of a believer so exciting!! Seeing God in the details!

For the Kingdom of God is not just fancy talk;
it is living by God’s power. Which do you choose?
1 Corinthians 4:20-21 (NLT)

Lots of Christmas toys, for adults and children, require batteries. The batteries fill the toys with the power they need to operate. Without the batteries, the toys are pretty much useless. Are we any different? If we are designed by God to be powered by Him, to be filled with His Spirit and we are trying to function in this life without His indwelling Spirit, how does that work? Not very well. There’s a piece/peace missing. Our “battery compartment” will be empty, and we will go searching for whatever we think will fill it up.

What will we choose? God will not force Himself upon us. He will not open up that empty place inside of all of us and drop Himself in there, ready to energize our spirits, unless we invite Him to. He will remain packaged up, in the drawer, on the shelf, outside our front door for however long it takes for us to realize that we have been watching life on an eight inch black and white screen. God will wait for as long as it takes for us to realize that Retail Therapy is not what we need unless it leads us into His Super Store where High Definition is the name of the game. He doesn’t want us to miss a single thing that He has planned for us and He wants to fill us with all His mighty power to accomplish whatever He sets before us…but we may miss it if we’re out shopping in all the wrong places. If we hear Him calling to us… “There’s a Blue Light Special in the Love Department!” and we go running off to some other flashy thing in this world that constantly seems to drum out the call of God in our lives…we’ll be searching in all the wrong places for all the wrong things and we never will find the missing star in our lives…the missing piece/peace. So many lives are thrown away on useless things that are a waste of time and energy because the bright morning Star is missing from their every day…

Christ our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed for us.
So let us celebrate the festival, not by eating the old
bread of wickedness and evil, but by eating the new
bread of purity and truth.
1 Corinthians 5:7b-8 (NLT)

Even if our life’s puzzle has over a million pieces in it, it will never be complete without Jesus Christ. He is purity and truth, He is the therapy we are needing, He is our past, our present and our future…He will never leave us wanting and wishing for more when we sit at His feet and tell Him our heart’s desire. When His will and our will become one, all the pieces of the puzzle fit…that’s true satisfaction, that’s true fulfillment, that’s the peace that we are all truly searching for.

As Oswald Chambers says, and I’ll paraphrase, The last abyss of our nature has been satisfied by Jesus.

Keeping an eye on the Bright Morning Star,

Diane