Putting the pieces of my "puzzle" together with God - a Thankful Thursday post

Have you ever tried to put a puzzle together without having any idea what it is supposed to look like when it is completed? It has occurred to me that when we attempt to get through life and make decisions independent of God, that's exactly what we are doing. 

Often, we convince ourselves that we know exactly how our lives "should" look. Perhaps the edges of the puzzle are our past experiences - the ones that have shaped us into the people that we are today. Those pieces are easier to put together because we can start with the corners and work our way out to complete a basic frame for our puzzle. 

We think we might have a sense of what the final picture is going to look like. So, we begin to search for pieces that might fit together. And some of them do. Sometimes, we even get enough pieces to match so that we can visualize parts of the puzzle. So it is as we grow and mature. Those moments come when you can look back and say, "Ok God, now I understand why such and such happened. I can see why you led me down this path."

But, as the puzzle continues to come together, it becomes apparent that there are pieces missing. And we begin searching for them. Now remember, we don't even know what our final picture looks like! Can you imagine how impossible that would be? Over the course of our lives, we find more and more pieces to add to the puzzle. Some have fit easily together. Other, we have pushed and prodded to fit into place. After all, we "know" how it's supposed to look. And as those pieces go together, we realize that perhaps the picture is going to turn put differently than we had imagined. But, we still can't visualize the end result. And that's where God comes in.

Our Heavenly Father is the Master Builder. He is able to see how each piece of my puzzle fits together. Not only that, God is simultaneously putting together not only my puzzle, but every other person's puzzle as well. And the puzzles that he has created fit perfectly and intricately together. They create a beautiful masterpiece that is beyond anything we can imagine, one that we will only be able to full view when we cross that bridge into heaven. 

In the meantime, our Loving Creator reminds me that I don't need to see the whole picture. It isn't my job to try to put the puzzle together on my own. He asks that I trust Him to place the pieces of my puzzle in my hand. God gently guides those pieces to the right position when I allow Him to do so. By relying on Him to direct my life, I hold the answers to successfully completing my puzzle. And on this Thankful Thursday, I am eternally grateful that His way is perfect and that my life is in His hands.