The Most Beautiful Puzzle

       

Do you like to work jigsaw puzzles? Growing up, my grandmother and mom loved to work large jigsaw puzzles. I’m talking 500, 750, 1000  piece puzzles. The week between Christmas and New Year was traditionally the time where we had a table devoted to a large puzzle. Inevitably, we would all be pulled into it at some point in the week. Sometimes we finished it, sometimes not. It was left out on the table and we would spend hours pouring over it. Gradually, the beautiful picture emerged, as the pieces came together. 

     What is the first step in putting the puzzle together? After pouring out some of the pieces, you first have to turn over the pieces to see the pattern on the front, right?

      Our spiritual journey in understanding the Bible is similar to working a puzzle. We are gradually gaining a better understanding of the beautiful picture that will become increasingly more clear to us as we place each piece together and see the connections take place. Any time spent in study of God's Word is like a piece or two of a very big, intricate puzzle. Think: one of those 3-D, multi-faceted masterpieces! Lord willing, the beautiful picture of the Gospel will be a little more visible to us through gaining a deeper understanding of the purposes of God contained within each study.  

     This Bible that we hold in our hands contains 66 books. Each book is like a piece of a puzzle that makes up our complete Bible. Each book is a different size and contains a different key to understanding the redemption story. The New Testament is made up of 27 books and the Old Testament contains 39 different books. We often think of them as “Before Christ” (OT) and “After Christ” (NT). 

 What is your favorite section or book of the Bible? If you set your Bible down, what section would it fall open to almost automatically? What part of your Bible is worn from repetitive use? Maybe it is the Psalms, or the book of James. Maybe Hebrews? Or the book of John. Romans? Phillipians? Being familiar with our Bible or sections of our Bible is a wonderful thing! But we do need to be familiarizing ourselves with the WHOLE Bible. It's time to move from the familiar and expose ourselves to a new portion of Scripture. To neglect to do this is to miss out on the blessing that comes from placing that piece of the puzzle into the bigger picture. We can get glimpses of the full picture, but not the complete experience. That sense of completion will never be realized – only as much as is possible to our frail human minds this side of Heaven, and only as much as we apply ourselves to study and open our hearts and minds to the work of the Holy Spirit. But we can continually click more pieces into place and move closer and closer to that full picture.

     What is our purpose in studying Scripture? To KNOW GOD. So, it stands to reason that if there are parts of Scripture we do not know, we are missing a part of the puzzle that God has given to us. He has revealed Himself to us through every word of Scripture and those books we do not know are like upside-down puzzle pieces. Those books of the Bible we are not comfortable with or familiar with are like huge gaps in the beautiful picture. As we carefully commit ourselves to the study of God's Word, we are turning over more pieces, revealing aspects of God's character, and methodically fitting those pieces into the other parts that we already know of who God is. 

    My challenge and prayer is that each of us is continually turning over more pieces of God's beautiful, magnificent puzzle. These are not random pieces. Each is unique and fits perfectly into place as designed by the Creator. Don't deprive yourself of this blessing of gaining an ever greater glimpse of the final masterpiece which we will one day be able to see in full. 

Soli Deo Gloria!

Heather Sparks