The Missing Piece
by Philip Asselin
Recently my wife and I went on a 12-night cruise trip to Alaska. On board, in the Observation Lounge, we saw a large table with a box containing a 4,000-piece jigsaw. Over the days that followed various groups of people worked on it and on the final day of the cruise I wandered over to take a look as it seemed to have been completed. Well, it had, apart from one missing piece, right in the middle. People commented on this, and it seemed rather strange that a single piece would be missing in the middle. Perhaps someone had intentionally taken it as a memento.
It got me thinking about jigsaws and our spiritual walk with God. No matter how ‘put together’ we might think we are, without Jesus in the centre of our lives, we remain incomplete.
Christians often see life as a puzzle, but God knows the full picture and He asks us, as believers, to trust Him to fit the pieces (life events) together for His glory. That involves trusting Him to work all things together for His good. To do this we must walk by faith, trusting God's guidance daily.
Where there is a difficult jigsaw, we can sometimes find ourselves trying to force a specific piece into the place where we believe it must fit. We can easily become frustrated when it doesn’t, but we must not try and make God fit our plans. Rather we must seek to fit into His plans and timing. Sometime a piece of our ‘jigsaw’ isn’t ready to go there, because other things (pieces) must be placed there first.
A jigsaw is made up of individual pieces, but they are not meant to stay isolated from each other. As followers of Jesus, our lives are meant to fit together perfectly with other believers, forming the larger "Body of Christ". Sometimes that isn’t easy, but to create the full picture it needs to happen.
At times we can be tempted to take our giftings and calling away from the picture God wants to form. That can be because of pride, anger, hurt, resentment, and unforgiveness. But, just like that jigsaw on the ship, when that piece is taken away, the whole picture is incomplete. We can still see the image on the box, but we have taken ourselves out if it. What is happening with your piece of the jigsaw? Is it where it should be, or is it taken out?
Philip Asselin Philip is on the associate ministry and teaching teams with Glyndley Manor. He and his wife Gillian attended the second Healing Retreat at Glyndley Manor in 1992, and were greatly helped. They have two grown up children, one grandson, and a step-granddaughter in California, and a daughter and granddaughter in Eastbourne. His desire is to see people healed and set free to serve God.
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