The Perfect Puzzle-man

IOW quote for March 21, 2008


Throughout the history of God's people as given to us in the Bible, we see that life is a test. We have before us the option to trust God "no matter what," or to walk away from Him. To walk away from God is to leave the fragments of our dreams in pieces on the floor, but to trust Him is to let God pick up the pieces and make us whole again. When we choose to let Him make us whole again, he will make our lives more beautiful than before." ~~from “What I learned from God While Quilting” by Ruth McHaney Danner & Cristine Bolley~~


When I read this quote today and it talks about our lives or a dream being in pieces it reminds me of puzzles. I love putting puzzles together. For some odd reason they are very entertaining as well as mind boggling at times. The first things you see in a hospital waiting room are boxes of puzzles to pass the time away. People often put them together only to glue them in place so they can hang them on their wall.

The real challenge is when the puzzle pieces look so much alike, are all one color, or they fit together sort of kind of but you have your doubts on whether that truly is the right piece. There’s been a time or two that once I finished a challenging puzzle I would take the pieces one by one and number them. I did it just in case I wanted to cheat on the puzzle the next time or didn’t feel like taking the challenge.

The intriguing thing about putting together a puzzle is watching someone else do it. It drives you nuts, or at least it does me, watching them pick up the pieces and put it where you don’t think it should be. You want to interrupt and say, “No, it goes over there or try it here.” The test becomes the ability to trust that the one putting the pieces together knows what they are doing and they don’t need our help.

The scenario is no different with God. Often we find it very hard to sit back and let Him put together the puzzle pieces of our lives. Our lack of patience and trust shows up in our fidgety behavior waiting for Him to complete the picture. Too frequently we jump in and try to help and we wind up upsetting the whole box and the pieces go a flying.

Our biggest challenge is to trust God with EVERY piece of our lives and dreams. Instead of giving Him only the pieces we have a difficult time with we need to be handing them all over. After all, He is the designer of the puzzles. Who better to put it together, making the picture or outcome even more beautiful than we could ever imagine. The choice is ours for the making. The pieces are His for the taking.

CLOSING THOUGHT: Fragmented by the world and the choices we need to make in life we all would like to have a bottle of puzzle glue to keep us together once we are in place. Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. Life is going to take its toll on us, there are going to be some puzzle pieces missing or get bent out of shape here and there. However the true glue that keeps us together is the glue of trusting God. Putting our faith in the keeper of the puzzle box, us, to do what He needs to do to complete the picture.

The bumps we encounter in life may knock the puzzle box down as the pieces take orbit but there is always the perfect “puzzleman,” Jesus Christ, there to put us back together again. Humpty Dumpty may not have had enough of the kings horses or men to put him back together again but that was because he was using the wrong king. When we have Jesus as our King, the perfect puzzleman, the designer Himself we have enough, Praise the Lord. He is truly the one we should all want in charge of the puzzle pieces. The One we should be walking towards instead of away from saying “Here Jesus is my box (my life), I trust You to be in charge of the final picture.”


This week our lovely host is Nina over at Mama's Little Treasures . Pick up whatever pieces you need and wonder on over there to read and share with others on what they have to say about today’s quote.