Poor Jack

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Poor Jack.

For 8 years (that’s right – 8 YEARS!), he painstakingly put together that enormous puzzle. I wonder how many hours it took. I wonder how many times his wife yelled at him to get it off the table. I wonder how many times he thought about giving up but didn’t. And then just as he is nearing the end, when he thinks the puzzle is finally finished, THERE IS ONE PIECE MISSING! How can this be? Where did it go? Was it the dog? Was it the vacuum? Was it even in the box at all? (Tell me that wouldn’t be a temptation for a worker at the puzzle factory! Heh heh!) How does he feel now that it’s all over?

I wonder how many times God looks down at us and thinks, “Poor .” We painstakingly put together the perfect picture of our lives – our futures, our job situations, our marriages, our children, our financial situations. We work towards our goals tirelessly, checking off each completed goal as we pass it, for as long as it takes. We clutter our minds and hearts with nothing else but what WE think our lives should be, never giving up on our goals and eagerly anticipated the pretty picture that eventually will be before us.

But then at the end of it, we sit back to survey all of the glory we have put together for ourselves, with a sigh of relief, ready to gloat in the glory of all that is us, with a sigh of satisfa…wait! THERE IS ONE PIECE MISSING! Was it the dog? Was it the vacuum? No, my friends – It was never in the box at all. It’s the God piece that’s missing, because we didn’t ask Him to be a part of our puzzle. And without that piece, our puzzle is no good at all. It’s incomplete. It’s not the pretty picture we hoped it would be, with that one hole glaring up at us. And everyone can see that, and everyone knows that we are incomplete. And all that work was for nothing because we never bothered to ask God to be part of our puzzle. And He would have jumped at the chance to be part of it. He would have been so happy to be a part, and He would have made our puzzle so beautiful, and so perfect, and so complete. If only we had asked…

Poor Jack indeed.