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Throughout our history God has spoken to our ancestors by his prophets in many different ways. The revelation he gave them was only a fragment at a time, building one truth upon another. But to us living in these last days, God now speaks to us openly in the language of a Son, the appointed Heir of everything, for through him God created the panorama of all things and all time (Hebrews 1:1, 2, The Passion Translation).

How satisfying is it to place the final piece to a jigsaw puzzle...particularly a large, complex puzzle you’ve been working on for several days? Extremely satisfying!

Our family, like many others, have used some of our time in COVID lockdown putting together puzzles. Some of us enjoy the activity more than others, but it’s been a good opportunity to model perseverance and to show our kids strategies to make solving the puzzle easier. We’re not experts, but we do know to start by first having a look at the box top; the process is made infinitely easier if one knows what the end product should look like! Next we separate the edge and corner pieces from the rest, and when the edges are complete, it’s time to start filling in the middle. When we first started putting together puzzles as a family activity, I started by completely removing the edges and corner pieces from the rest of the puzzle. It was less overwhelming to our younger kids to start with only the pieces that were necessary at the time, and as we made progress I added more and more pieces. 

After the first puzzle was done everyone agreed that the feeling of satisfaction upon completion was pretty great. A couple of times we came up short at the end, and usually the missing piece or pieces were underneath someone, on the floor, or in the dog’s crate. We never did find the last piece to one of the puzzles, and that was some kind of bummer! 

God spoke to His people in the Old Testament through prophets, and He gave them one piece of the “puzzle” at a time according to what they could handle. Each word was like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle: edges and corners first to build the framework of the larger picture, and every piece connecting to and building on the others. But without the image on top of the box to give them a complete picture, how could the folks in the Old Testament truly know what they were to be piecing together? It would be like us trying to assemble a 1000-piece puzzle without having seen the top of the box. We could probably get all the edges and corners, but the middle would be an exercise in frustration without knowing what it should look like upon completion.

Enter Jesus: the complete picture as seen on the top of creation’s puzzle box, the One through whom everyone and everything was created, the final Word that connects everything from the past to our present and the future. Without Jesus the puzzle doesn’t make sense, but with Him? Ah, sweet satisfaction! 

Take a minute to think about your daily life. How are you trying to make pieces of your puzzle fit together? Are you struggling to make them fit together on your own, or are you consulting the complete picture on top of the box?

Now take a moment to ask God to help you keep your eyes on Him, the complete picture, as you go on your way today and this week.

Lastly, let’s take a minute to thank God for sending us His Son, Jesus.