Peace in the Puzzle

Life can be puzzling at times—especially when things happen that make no sense. Many of us may have asked God, “Why?” But if we understand that it’s not just one piece of the puzzle that creates a beautiful picture but many pieces, then we can endure difficult, challenging and puzzling events in our life.

Before the advent of computer technology, jigsaw puzzles were a formidable and fun way of teaching children critical thinking and problem-solving. Many adults would take the challenge of putting together a 1,000-piece puzzle with a picture of 100 dalmatians.

The irony is that you cannot put a puzzle together unless you first “see” the finished results. The picture on the box of puzzle pieces is required in order to begin solving the jigsaw puzzle.

When life in the present makes no sense, usually God will give us a picture of what our life looks like in the future. You will “see,” in prayer or reading the word, a picture of the life God desires for you. Scripture says, “I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please” (Isaiah 46:10).

I would like to explore some practical applications of this principle through a story in the life of the Apostle Paul. In Acts 16:9-10, Paul saw a vision from God of a man from Macedonia begging him to come to Macedonia to help him. God gave Paul a picture to “see.” Now Paul needed the Holy Spirit to put the pieces together.

You have to start somewhere. Just like God gave Paul a vision—a picture on his box—God will speak to you, through the word, a vision, a person or the Holy Spirit. Paul didn’t know the man he saw in the vision, and he didn’t sit around trying to figure it out. He immediately proceeded to go (see Acts 16:11).

God may give you a huge assignment. It’s not the time to try and figure it out or rationalize it, but it’s the time to start moving by faith. You may not see how it will come to pass immediately, but if you move by faith, God will give you more.

If the assignment God shows you is a business, start by writing a business plan, get your credit cleaned up or start studying the word and increasing your prayer life. The worst thing you could do is just talk about it or think of about. You’ve got to be about it.

When you empty the contents of the puzzle box on the table, it looks like a mess, and there is no order. Just like a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle, some pieces are upside down, and everything is scrambled. It is so easy to become discouraged at this stage. One’s sense of identity dissolves to some extent, bringing about bewilderment.

Paul had no idea of how or even when things would come together. He received a vision from the Lord, and he started by doing the only thing he could do: Paul went to Macedonia by faith.

Build the border. Everyone knows, when you work on jigsaw puzzles, you must start with the border first. You must set boundaries. In the same way, in life, when you don’t know where to begin, start with building a border. 

Paul was in a new city, with only a “vision” from the Lord. He and his team were there several days, without any more pieces to solve the puzzle. Paul did not get distracted. He and his team stayed within the border of their faith by honoring the sabbath day (see Acts 16:13).

First, guard your heart: “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Proverbs 4:23). Don’t allow bitterness, unforgiveness or wrong motives fester in your heart. Don’t allow secret sins to burden you.

Did you know your heart has eyes? When you see the Lord through the correct lens of the heart, you walk in the purity of God, uncontaminated. And God will allow your eyes to be enlightened; to see what you couldn’t see before: “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Psalm 19:8).

Sometimes, when you walk away from the puzzle, take a break and rest your eyes, when you return, you can immediately see the pieces of the puzzle you are looking for. When we refresh ourselves in the Lord, he gives us the ability to “see.” He gives us the necessary revelation for the journey.

The Apostle Paul, says in Ephesians 1:18, “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people.”

I place a border in my life to keep me in the realm of faith and the supernatural so I do not operate in my flesh, but I walk by the Spirit not by my natural “sight.”

Second, ask God to place a hedge of protection around you. You must decide who should be part of your life and who should not. You cannot allow everything to enter your eye gate. You become what you behold. You must limit what you watch on the internet and television. Jesus says in John 14:30, “I will not say much more to you, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold over me.”

Jesus created a border that the enemy could not penetrate, and we must do the same.

Proverbs says, “Where there is no revelation, people cast off restraint; but blessed is the one who heeds wisdom’s instruction” (29:18). This boarder will keep you in your purpose so you can “see” the completed picture manifested that the Lord revealed to you.

Don’t force a puzzle piece to fit. I’m sure Paul thought when he finally got to Macedonia the man in the vision would be waiting for him. He was looking for what he saw on the picture on his box. But when he got there, no man of Macedonia was beckoning him. The team waited for several days, and still no man of Macedonia. Then, they went to the riverside on the Sabbath day where they met Lydia, a seller of purple, and she and her family were saved (see Acts 16:14). 

Paul had to discern that this was only a piece of the puzzle but not the finished puzzle. Paul could have easily said, “OK, I know it was supposed to be a man, but maybe that was just a symbol of  a person in my dream, not a specific man.” Paul could have rationalized the assignment and fit a piece of the puzzle where it did not belong. 

It’s possible to see something incorrectly.  A person’s perception can be completely wrong, and that’s dangerous. Perception is a powerful thing. So many of our actions are determined by how we perceive things to be. How we perceive is based on what we think we hear or see. Any time the senses are involved there is potential for error.

Isaiah 6:9-10 says, “He said, ‘Go and tell this people: “Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.” Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise, they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.’”

People will have wrong perspectives when giving you advice. You may have heard the old adage, “The glass is half empty or half full depending on how you perceive it.” The pool may seem shallow in four feet if you are six feet tall, and that same four feet may seem deep to a person who is three feet tall.

Mark 8:17-18 says, “Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked them: ‘Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don’t you remember?’”

Ask the Lord to open the eyes of your heart to see him in every facet and aspect of your life so you don’t put pieces of the puzzle in the wrong place and end up with a distorted or incomplete vision.

Each piece is important—even the dreaded pieces. Each piece of your life is important. There is no shortcut, and we cannot choose which pieces we want to use in the puzzle. If we discard any piece, the picture will never be complete. This is the part that makes little sense—divorce, premature death of a loved one, terminal illness, chronic sickness. Why? We don’t want these pieces of the puzzle in our picture. No! Yet God allows these pieces in our puzzle.

Soon after meeting Lydia, Paul cast the spirit out of a slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination. Her masters were upset because the slave girl made them money through her fortune-telling. Paul and Silas were severely beaten and thrown into jail. I am sure Paul was thinking this is nothing like the vision God gave to him (see Acts 16:22).

Paul did what was right, and now he found himself in a filthy prison with open sores and wounds from a beating he didn’t deserve. Where was the man from Macedonia? Has this ever happened to you? When you decided to commit your life to God, start tithing and living Holy, then major attacks began happening?

In God’s infinite wisdom, He makes all things work together for your good in order to create a masterpiece.

Keep the picture on the box before you—see the invisible. I only watch football during the Super Bowl. In the 2017 Super Bowl, the Patriots managed to force the first overtime in Super Bowl history, won the coin toss, and never gave the Falcons the ball. Brady orchestrated an eight-play, 75-yard drive, putting the Patriots on the doorstep of a game-winner. New England erased a 28-3 lead in the final 18 minutes of regulation and won the first Super Bowl to ever require overtime, 34-28.

The patriots had to reimagine and see the invisible win. They had to gain mental fortitude to not let defeat have victory. 

Hebrews 11:1 declares, “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” That was how Moses experienced the wilderness. " By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible" (Hebrews 11:27).

It may take the visible clutter of our lives to fall away before it becomes easier for us to see the invisible. Sometimes in the wilderness, you can see farther and more clearly than at any other time in life.

Pastor I.V. Hilliard says, “Meditation is me seeing the vision on the inside of me (without actually experiencing it) to give myself a spiritual experience to stimulate my belief system.” Always keep the picture of your life in mind as God sees it. The late great Myles Munroe stated, “If what you see is not what you saw then what you see is temporary.”

Paul’s obedience landed him in prison. 

Acts 16:25 says, “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.” What a testimony! People are “watching” how you respond in your darkest hour. God will use worshippers to set at liberty those that are held captive. When we keep God’s vision in our hearts, and we see the invisible it points unbelievers to Jesus.

Each piece explains the other. The earthquake reveals your assignment. Acts 16:26-30 says, “Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose. The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted, ‘Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!’ The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. He then brought them out and asked, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’”

The earthquake in Acts revealed the man from Macedonia; it was the jailer!  Here was the missing piece of the puzzle. None of it made sense until the jailer asked the question, “What must I do to be saved?” But every piece was necessary, even being beaten and thrown into jail.  So, each part explains the other. The earthquake was not about Paul and Silas being released.  God’s desire was for the jailer’s and his family’s salvation.

Don’t try to make sense of your life. Make sense of your God. Life is like a tapestry.  The underside of the tapestry is full of threads that are in knots, tangled up, in disarray and disorder. Whether we have made mistakes or someone has wronged us, the consequences can be most devastating. And yet, simultaneously God is creating a beautiful picture.  The enemy wants you to feel shame and guilt when the dreaded puzzle pieces show up in your life.  David said, Psalm 44:15–16, “I live in disgrace all day long, and my face is covered with shame at the taunts of those who reproach and revile me, because of the enemy, who is bent on revenge.”

Webster’s dictionary defines the word “shame” as a “…feeling of disgrace or guilt…a feeling of inferiority or unworthiness.” God will put the enemy of your life to open shame (see Colossians 2:15), and Isaiah 61:7 says, “Instead of your shame  you will receive a double portion, and instead of disgrace  you will rejoice in your inheritance.”

Now let’s go back to Paul. In Acts 16:35, Paul was vindicated! The magistrates did not recognize that Paul was a Roman, and it was against the law to touch let alone beat a Roman. They did not “see,” “perceive” or “recognize” the truth—instead, the magistrates believed the lie. 

Paul knew God, so when nothing made sense, Paul focused on making sense of God. Lydia and her family, along with the jailer’s family, were among the first converts in the New Testament.  What a masterpiece!

This article was extracted from Issue 8 (Winter 2021) of the AVAIL Journal. Claim your free annual subscription here.