You hold a puzzle piece in your hands – only one piece of a very big puzzle. Sometimes you might hold several pieces at a time. Have you looked carefully at your piece(s)? What do you think those colors, shapes, and designs are part of? Where do you fit? What do you do with one piece of a big life puzzle?
Big Life Puzzle – And Your Piece Matters
Over the holidays you might pull out a puzzle to do with your family. The box includes lots of pieces and an example picture of what your puzzle will look like when it’s finished.
Life is like a puzzle – but it’s not like the holiday puzzle. Each day you work portions of the big picture to fit your piece(s) into place. Sometimes you try so many times to find the right connection. This is particularly frustrating when you have an important decision to make or you need a response to an issue.
You Are Needed And Wanted
Your piece is important to complete a big life puzzle. You may wonder how you fit into the huge picture, but you can get clues as you study your piece. Your clues are color, design, shades, and shapes. Then study where it might fit. The big life puzzle is more than any one person can put together. But every person can find the place their piece fits – if they are willing to work at it.
The very process of finding where your piece belongs is valuable – to you and every other piece held by someone else. Please never think your little piece(s) aren’t important enough to place. If your piece is missing, there is a gaping hole in the full picture. You are needed and wanted.
God created the big life puzzle, and He designed your unique piece(s). The “fitting together” process is highly valued by God. He promises to help you. After all, He asks you to put this thing together by faith – not by sight, of all things! (2 Cor. 5:7) Can you imagine doing a physical puzzle like that?
God wants you to have a part in His big picture. His incredible strategy makes the entire picture glorious, beautiful, striking, and even pensive. Your work is to engage your will and put things together to honor and cooperate with God’s big picture. This is where you find meaning to your life.
How People Feel With One Piece Of A Big Life Puzzle
Looking at only one puzzle piece that belongs to a bigger picture brings many different responses. Here are 6, but there are many more responses:
- Some feel glad to have at least one piece they have control over.
- Others feel frustrated at trying to place their piece with no idea where it goes.
- People can feel anxious while still others might feel afraid or even angry.
- There’s always the guy or gal who gets super excited at the unknown adventure.
- You always find someone who is jealous that their piece seems less significant than someone else’s. You might feel your piece is only part of un-ending sky while someone else has the bloom of a rose.
- And there’s a group of folks that simply feel confused. How does a person contribute to a big life puzzle picture with only a piece or two . . . and with no example of the finished picture?
What To Do With One Puzzle Piece
When you only have a piece or two of a huge puzzle, and that puzzle is your daily life interface with everything else, it can be confusing. So many questions! How do you even begin? Where do you attempt to place your piece? What if you don’t have time or energy to figure out how to assemble your piece with “tabs” and “blanks” of other pieces? How do you know the big picture is a desirable one? And then there’s a very common scenario – What if you are impatient?” Working a puzzle takes patience, and life is a puzzle.
Life often gives too few answers. However, 2 Pet. 1:3 says God gives you “everything you need for life and godliness.” Jesus started the big life puzzle long ago. He values your part and plans to help you, enable you, empower you, and plug you into His original design – even in this broken world.
Why not say, “YES” to Him? Just trust God and do what He puts in front of you. Rest in His love and wisdom. And remember He will lead and guide you.
God Knows Where You Fit In The Big Life Puzzle
God sees every puzzle of our lives, and He sees the big picture. Even pieces the enemy tries to throw into the mix do not go unnoticed by God. Nothing surprises God or catches Him off-guard. He is continually working His purposes. Even though the big picture is not in your field of vision, there are some things you can do to partner with Him as you work your part of His big life puzzle. You do this by faith.
Four Things To Do In The Big Life Puzzle
Four things you can DO even blindfolded as you work the big life puzzle:
- Believe God, His love, and His good intentions for you.
- Surrender completely in every detail. Remember, you are a “living sacrifice.”
- Obey His principles and His lead by leaning into Him and simply doing what He says to do.
- Be creative and joyful. Even though you only have a tiny piece of the big life puzzle, you are alive!
If God asks you to do things that don’t make sense in your brain, determine to respond with the above steps anyway. God is all about lifting you out, gathering you up, and bringing you back into the place He has for you. That is His work.
Your work is to follow the above steps as you deliberately refuse to immerse yourself in the world’s traditions and tendencies. As you tear down everything more important than God in your life, as you eliminate all activities, thoughts, goals, dreams, and words that do not represent God’s ways, and as you cleanse yourself from everything that offends God, you will be very busy! “Working out your salvation . . .” (Phil. 2:12)
Enjoyable Work Builds The Big Life Puzzle
If you faithfully pursue God first and most, God will keep you in a good place. You will enjoy deep peace, contentment, and freedom, even when you don’t see the big picture. As you work by faith, you find yourself empowered, emboldened, and effective.
Bring your very best to God. Apply every energy to the four things in the previous list. God will keep His word to you . . . and your children . . . and their children – as your generations do the same four things. The result? Living in His peace (not necessarily trouble-free). You will be:
- Established.
- Multiplied.
- In the safety of God’s presence.
- “Doing life” with God, your Friend.
- Blessed in your work.
- Made holy increasingly each day.
God Is Faithful
God is faithful. You can depend on that. Faithfulness is His very essence. The question you should wrestle with has to do with you. Are you faithful? The opposite of faithful is faithless? Faithless means “promise breaking.” So which word best defines you? Faithful or faithless? Perhaps you are somewhere in-between.
To be human is to be “promised to God,” the Creator of life. You belong to Him, but you get to choose if you will live in that promise – if you will be a very special piece in His big life puzzle. It’s no one else’s choice. Just yours. Why not confidently go forward, knowing He is working as you work to place your puzzle piece(s) in the big life puzzle? You are intended to be partners.
Application Thoughts
God has chosen you. Can you believe that? Why not let God show you what He has had in mind for your life since before creation? Put yourself in a position to receive from Him. Choose Him back and become a miracle puzzle piece in process.
Here are seven questions to consider as you work to find where your puzzle piece fits:
- How do you feel about having only a piece or two of the big life puzzle?
- Do you know your life piece(s) is extremely valuable to the big picture?
- What have you done to explore how and where you fit?
- Name your gifts and skill sets. How will you apply them each day?
- What specific things can you do to partner with God and accomplish the four things in the list above?
- Why not find where your “tabs” and “blanks” fit?
- Are you in the habit of keeping your promises?
Remember: “by faith and not by sight.” Trust the One who designed your piece and knows exactly where He wants to place your life. Your piece matters. No one else can take your special place.
** This article, Day 55, is partially taken from Despicable We: Daily Studies in Ezekiel. Check it out for practical tips on how to live in a tough world.
