Last weekend, the Lord allowed many of the thoughts that have been tumbling around in my head to spill out onto paper after a conversation with Josh Scilzo. (The Lord made a spontaneous trip to Michigan possible in order for a group of us to visit Josh and Chelsea who were in from Alaska for a brief visit.) Here they are:
Puzzles
This Christmas, I made an odd puzzle which seemingly had no clear picture. It was a room that appeared to be very cluttered and confusing, neglected, with neither rhyme nor reason to all the things piled into it. Many of the individual pieces were curiously formed and colored and lent to the mass of disorganization and unknowing, and because of these things, the making of the puzzle was excessively slow and painstaking, and often was as though it were an exercise in futility.
Today, I spoke with a friend who gratefully recounted to me the workings of God in the life of him and his wife. He spoke of the gracious wisdom of a Father who chooses always in love for His own, and the Father's ways are often veiled and mysterious to His. Veiled and mysterious--but good. Not easy, but good. This friend told me of the beauty and depth of the Church, the Bride of Christ, and of how God was teaching, applying, strengthening, changing, and growing them through this marvelous Body of Christ. He spoke of warfare in the workplace--the oppression that comes when one battles not with flesh and blood but with the rulers of the darkness of this world and with spiritual wickedness in high places. He spoke of prayer. He spoke of the vision of years--to serve God as a missionary in a foreign land. He spoke of the years of waiting and unknowing between the birth of the dream and the present time and the future time of fulfillment. And it was as if it were all a puzzle, and each of the pieces were hidden by the Master's perfect understanding, and each revealed with marvelous clarity and light in its full time. Yet still there remained a stewardship of seeking--to have eyes open to see each piece in its place. And sometimes the searching seemed long and tedious, and sometimes it seemed as though it were but in vain.
For weeks, I had pondered fragments--they seemed as if they might be pieces of the pieces of a puzzle. But vague and confusing and sometime hurtful--for some of the edges were hard and cutting as I held them in my hand. And if they were puzzle pieces, then the puzzle was a dreadful mix of an old picture that the Father had removed from before my eyes and a new and unfamiliar one that I had not yet learned to clearly see. They seemed to belong to a non-existent whole, for it was as though the Master had removed even the edge pieces from what I had perceived my puzzle to be. And to look at the bare puzzle table began to be overwhelming; for the God of wisdom and grace had made all things dark and barren, and discouragement swelled for my earth-bound expectations and foolish pride now made the trajectory of my life seem as but empty strivings and the making of the Master's puzzle as an impossible thing. And thus the darkness prevailed.
But the darkness was from the Master's hand, and it was good: the Father's lovingkindness displayed in ways veiled and mysterious, but good. Piled one on top of another, but good. Not easy, but good. All the "seemings" were opportunities to walk by faith and not by sight, for the conundrum of the darkness was that it led in paths of light. As the darkness was accepted as from the hand of the Lord, the light of His countenance and presence became more than sufficient to contend with barren tables and sharp pieces and endless clutter, for the countenance of the Master is more riveting than all these things, and His presence is Light, Life, Joy, Patience, Comfort, Strength, and Peace.
This is the beauty of darkness and imcomplete puzzles: to better see the Father's face and to more wholly trust the tracings of His sometimes unseen hand. My puzzle is desolate. My life is replete.
Because I have nothing, I most have the All.
