Puzzles!

Great are the works of the Lord. They are pondered by all who delight in them. Glorious and majestic are His deeds, and His righteousness endures forever. Psalm 111:2-3

During Covid (the first time) many of our friends began the practice of doing jigsaw puzzles. It was therapeutic to put the pieces out on a table, mull over the picture on the box, and work each day on putting the interlocking pieces together. It sounded like a great exercise in brain power, but I can’t do the “table thing”, so I found a jigsaw puzzle app and began completing one puzzle a day. Granted, there are only 64 pieces, but it’s fun, works the brain, and once you find the correct piece, it locks in place!

There are all kinds of puzzles. There are crossword puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, mechanical puzzles, math puzzles, word search puzzles, sudoku and even trivia. Each one is different, but a puzzle none the less.

When the word puzzle is defined as a noun, its definition is a game, toy or problem used to test ingenuity or knowledge. If it’s defined as a verb, the definition changes into feeling confused because one can’t make sense of a situation or problem.

Life itself can be a puzzle and actually the definitions of both a noun and a verb can be used to describe it.

After all her girls left home and married, my Mama began doing crossword puzzles every day. She didn’t take the easy route, but she attacked the very tedious Wall Street Journal ones. I can see her now sitting in her chair with the paper, pencil and a dictionary by her side. The pencil was used rather than a pen because many times her answers were wrong. The answers to the puzzle appeared in the next day’s paper, but Mama didn’t want to look until she had tried every way to work it out for herself.

We are very much like that in our daily lives. We don’t want to look to God for answers to our puzzles until we have tried every other way to solve it for our selves and on our own!

The story is told of a sixth grade Sunday School teacher who was attempting to prove a point to his students. He divided the class into three groups. The objective was to see which group could put together a jigsaw puzzle first. The only rule was absolutely no talking. The first group received puzzle pieces in a box with the picture on it. The second group received puzzle pieces in a box, but the picture on the box didn’t match the pieces. The third group received puzzle pieces but no picture at all.

The second and third group became very frustrated as they watched the first group moving along with no difficulty. They had no idea why it was so much harder for them! The lesson that day was that life is like the pieces of a puzzle. We all go through times of joy, sadness, grief, hard times, and many different emotions. We watch others around us going about their lives with no apparent difficulties, and we can’t solve the puzzle. We will never solve the puzzle unless we have the right tools, but the good news is that Jesus is there through it all to help us put it all together.

The first thing that puzzles teach us is that we need all the pieces of the puzzle in order to solve it. One piece standing alone is inadequate. It takes everyone of them interlocking to create the picture.

Secondly, each piece of the puzzle is important. If we work to finish the puzzle and get to the end with one piece missing, the puzzle is of no worth.

Finally, to solve a puzzle, one much start by working from the outside in. When we find the pieces that “frame” the puzzle, we can begin to work on the inside. God frames his plan for us, and He helps us to work toward completing it.

God makes the body of Christ to be like interlocking puzzle pieces. Each one of us is needed to contribute our unique strengths to His kingdom. When members of Christ’s body find their strengths, use their strengths, and value strengths we find in one another, we interconnect to form the whole or the complete puzzle. Together we are stronger.

We are designed to fit together like a puzzle to reflect the character of Jesus in all we do. Just like interlocking puzzle pieces, we build on each other and together we exemplify Him.