‘tiz a puzzle
my wife and i decided to do a project together. not always a good idea but we both like puzzles. we went to the store and bought a 1000 piece puzzle. now me i buy one with bright colors. you know instantly where the greens, the reds, the blues, etc go. my wife buys a beautiful landscape of a lighthouse in a storm. now her puzzle choice was a LOT of browns, greens, darker browns, lighter greens, some white, some more browns, tans, khakis, do you see where i’m going here. this is a hard puzzle. just slight variations and a piece could fit at the top, middle, or bottom of this puzzle. in other words it is a pain.
and then there is the solving of the puzzle. i’m pretty traditional i think. put the border together find an area and complete the area. i tend to work across the puzzle from bottom to top. order, i say, order. my wife found a section of the puzzle she liked and began to put the puzzle together from the inside??!! now i must admit i have never seen anyone do this before. i didn’t say anything to her but i was wondering how will she know where to connect this nuanced piece of the puzzle with it’s varying shades of purple (which i swear is brown, another slight difference in solving the puzzle).
well, last night there was a breakthrough. while i was building from the bottom and my wife had put together a major piece of the interior i noticed something. her lighthouse fit into my seawall and crashing waves. Praise Jesus a meeting of the minds, a better picture of the whole, something working from opposite angles came together and we are beginning to vision the end. now all we have left is the big sky with its purples, (browns) and other dark shades.
here is what i learn. people looking at one project with two different ways of solving the problem can still arrive at the right solution. now i still get frustrated, as does my wife, when i can’t get her to solve the puzzle my way. but with a little negotiation, with a little conversation, with a little maneuvering the lighthouse fits into the seawall. i believe that churches need to learn to function this way. we have one goal – allowing God to use us to build His Kingdom. we may come at it from different perspectives and different methods but in the end it is His plan. we can work together, one body, many parts – don’t let methods confuse the message. Jesus said, “if I be lifted up, I’ll draw all men to myself.” ljbt (little jim’s bible translation) no matter how you lift Him up, it’s a good thing. so, lift Him up.
