Have you ever searched the table top for a jigsaw puzzle piece? You need just the right one to fill that blank spot staring back at you. As you shuffle through the pile, your eyes scan knobs and inlets for the only perfect piece—the one that will fit the blank space you need to fill. You examine each shape carefully; give it a quarter or half-turn in your fingers. You bring it close to the bare spot in your puzzle and find at the last moment that it doesn’t fit.
So you scrutinize the picture. You’re sure the missing piece will be covered in foliage, as that is the whole of what you’re working with. Then when you finally find the only possible fit, it is not foliage after all, but the face of an owl or some other bird, which looks thoughtfully at you from a small branch. What you expected wasn’t the reality of what you found.
Prayers are like that, too. We can give God the specifics and parameters, the size and shape of our needs, the desires of our heart. But His answer is different than what we’re looking for. That’s because we don’t recognize the perfect fit that God sees. We think He has fulfilled only part of our requirements. It may take a great passage of time before we realize how perfectly suited to our needs God’s answer is.
Occasionally even the passage of time fails to satisfy our unanswered “why.” It is during the waiting times that we need to focus on the wisdom of Proverbs 3:5,6: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths.”
When we are focused on God’s wisdom, all the parts fit just so. Whether our perspective is perfect or not, God sees the big picture even without the missing pieces.
Mary, that’s a great analogy. Good enough for you to use again in more writing.
Thanks! Delores
Glad you enjoyed the post, Delores. May your day be blessed!
Mary