(September 2023) – This is something that God showed me maybe two years ago, which kept growing and becoming clearer. I believe we are living in another phase of it right now, which is why I revisited it now.
Have you ever been working on something in the Kingdom, and your focus was so much on what God had you doing, that you could not relate to others who were doing something different, or even doing something in your same area, but in a different way? There exists such a focus and a passion for what you are doing, that the focus can become narrow-mindedness in the way that you see others and their ministries. As you encounter different members of the body of Christ, who are called to different streams, it can often seem so different than what you are called to do that it doesn’t make sense to you.
I was reminded of the process of doing a large jigsaw puzzle with a group of people. Have you had this experience? At a family reunion, or a vacation? The strategy that most people employ when doing a puzzle is to gather similar pieces and assign each person a section of the puzzle to work on. Except in those cases, you are going to have a box, with the complete picture, to reference. It’s easy to say to one person, “why don’t you work on the clouds – here are the fluffy white and blue pieces”, or “There is a hot air balloon that’s green and yellow, why don’t you work on that part?” And for a time during this process each person is so focused on their own section, that they don’t really pay much attention to what the others are doing. From time to time, you’ll find a green balloon piece in the middle of your stack of cloud pieces, so you look up enough to see who needs it – and share your resources. But for the most part, you’re not concerning yourself with their progress, because you are working on yours.
In every puzzle process, there comes a time when the individuals, by looking up at the photo on the box, can see that their little individual sections have grown to the point that they can merge with the others. This is only determined by looking back and forth, comparing your work to that of the big picture, and then discerning if and when you are ready to merge. One thing is clear, the point is to complete the picture, and that can only be done by looking up from your section often enough to see where connections are ready to be made, and being willing to combine efforts and shift from doing your own thing, to working on the master plan.
This is how the body of Christ can be. In the old season, we existed more for our individual plans and purposes. This is easy to understand, because the big difference with the analogy of the puzzle and God’s plan is that God doesn’t leave the box for us to just reference whenever we want to. No, we can’t afford to be so detached from the master plan that we forget we’re working on a larger project. But what we do have is the Master himself, who knows the picture in so much detail, including each single piece and including each single puzzler. He is able to show us the big picture whenever it fits His purpose, but His purpose is about more than a completed project. It’s also about creating a community of people who not only depend on each other, but who are mutually dependent on God for His perfect guidance. And in that process, we begin to know and understand Him more.
How silly would it be if each puzzler were to consider their section to be all that is possible. Wouldn’t it be ridiculous to have a table full of people, let’s say 5 or 6, all sitting proudly over their unfinished section, with the haphazard edges of puzzle piece, rather than attached to the border that holds them together. To sit in defiance of the plan of the Master to have the picture completed. Is that not what we do? Is that not how we have denominations with their doctrinal superiority or elitism? That have so determined their form of doing ministry that they won’t even look up from their section to see what God may be doing? Or worse, they decide that their section IS the puzzle, and any other sections are not needed. And the puzzle designer sits in amazement at the limitations of their own success. What is lost, when we refuse to consider that as great as we may be at our particular stream of ministry, we may be preventing true transformation of culture because all we see is what’s right in front of us.
Let’s look up, and see if the Father won’t let us take a quick peak at the box to open our eyes and our minds. Let us listen to his direction so we can build the Kingdom one puzzle piece at a time.
