The Big Picture

Navigating life in our day is a bit like trying to put together a giant puzzle without the picture to show you the way. What must life have been like for the men and women who eventually followed Jesus, before they became His disciples? Much of their lives would had been spent praying for, studying about and waiting for Messiah’s arrival, trusting that the puzzle pieces of prophecy in the Scriptures would one day become clear. Did they wonder if He would come in their lifetime? Could they have ever imagined that in God’s big picture they were each a valuable piece within His elaborate and beautiful puzzle?

In John 14, Jesus was preparing and instructing His disciples around many spiritual principles for which they had no reference point; one way to the Father, His identity, the promised Holy Spirit, His plan to leave them and yet at the same time to come with the Father and make a home in them. How they must have pondered and debated together trying to fit all the pieces in a way that could help make sense of all that was happening around and within them.

The Bible is our big picture; over seven hundred and eighty thousand words, thirty plus thousand verses and more than eleven hundred chapters! According to 2 Timothy 3:16-17, ‘All Scripture is inspired by God and beneficial for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness so that the man or woman of God may be fully capable, equipped for every good work.’

Like never before, we are needing the strong loving discipline of our heavenly Father, the grace, truth and mind of our Lord Jesus Christ and the sure powerful leading of Holy Spirit dwelling in us, enabling our gaze to remain fixed on God’s big picture. Each of us is a valuable piece within a magnificent Kingdom puzzle that is coming to completion right before our eyes, and when God’s bigger picture is in view, our fears and anxieties fade away, revealing a clear bright path.

Each step Jesus took on this earth was intentional, each word He spoke integral and purposeful and each life He touched deliberate. You and I are invited and commissioned to walk in His ways, as we abide in Him, until He comes again.

Prayer: Lord, the world is swirling all around, but I choose today to turn my gaze to You and Your word, so that I can hear Your safe loving voice above all the noise. Teach me today, as You did Your disciples, the truth surrounding the indwelling life of Christ, so that I can rest in this day in light of You, not the world around me. Amen.