In bygone days of yore I was a puzzle person. 500 pieces? A day of play. 750 pieces? Let’s do this. 1,000 pieces? Pack a lunch. 5,000 pieces? Bring it on. I was even maniacal enough to have assembled a few 3D puzzles, take them apart, then see if I could beat my own assembly time. Somewhere along the way, the thrill disappeared. The why of it is either a separate blog post or a therapy session. I could probably make both work, though.
Last week I braved the horrors of the grocery store for my biweekly necessities. A pandemic complicates basic chores, as if I didn’t despise grocery shopping enough. I was dutifully following the up an down directional arrows for the aisles when the clearance and discontinued section appeared on my right. I scored some marzipan on the cheap and then a colorful box caught my eye.
A puzzle. Not just any puzzle, however. A motif of vintage Betty Crocker box designs produced by White Mountain Puzzles. For anyone not in the know, they’re a pretty good brand of puzzle. I stared at the box. I stepped away. I stepped back. I bit my lip. (No one saw. I had my face mask on.) I checked the price. Half off. I splurged. The puzzle went into my cart.
When I got home from the store the puzzle was temporarily forgotten. There were groceries to put up, cats to pet, face masks to make, and devotions to read. Throughout the entire Covid-19 lock down and my own layoff from my job, the book of Jonah had been my constant companion. If that seems odd, you might be new to this blog. After an incident involving myself and Elijah, (see a previous post) Jonah and I became buddies.
This short book is pretty intense. There has been an evolution of theological depth with it in my life. Can anyone else relate to this sort of progression?
Child: That guy got eaten and barfed up by a whale! ewwwww! cooool! (anyone with me here?)
Rebellion years: It doesn’t matter what you do, God is out to get you. (There’s grown ups in the church who have not gotten out of this phase.)
Welcome Home: no matter how pagan you get, true repentance is available and God loves you. (how is this different than seeker church outreach?)
Finding my calling: If I get this wrong, I’ll suffer. People will suffer. The Kingdom will not advance! (works based mentality is alive and kicking in the immature church.)
Currently: God has boundless compassion and there should be no “us verses them” mindset. (if you have needed toilet paper in the last month, you know what I’m talking about here.)
Interestingly enough, my deeper dive into Jonah just about follows the progression of the narrative. It only moves backwards in my rebellion years. Much like Jonah.
So, the many pieces of Jonah were colliding in my head when I finally sat down and cracked the seal on the puzzle box. I studied the box lid and realized exactly how much the color red was a factor and decided to tackle those areas last. I pulled all the border pieces to one side and found the four corners. All the blue went to a pile. Yellow went to another. Then the green. Red went back into the box. I cracked my neck. (Sorry, Mom.)
Let’s do this.
Forty five minutes in and I was done. The puzzle wasn’t done. The border was barely alive. But my “want to” had evaporated. I almost called it quits right there. Youngest almost inherited it at this point. I had a box lid with a clear picture of the desired outcome. I just didn’t want to put in the work needed to get there.
Many Christians today come to the cross because the desired outcome is eternity in heaven. I can’t find a rational person yet who WANTS to spend forever and always in hell. But their commitment ends there. Philippians 2:12-13: Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. This verse doesn’t support a works based faith nor does it prove we control our salvation. My friend Pastor Brad Kefauver says it best: The only part of salvation you participated in was the sin that made it necessary.
Jonah had been given the box lid, the plan. God tells him to “arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.” Jonah doesn’t want to take the pieces of the mission to create the desired outcome. God’s desire was the salvation of an entire city. A great city. But the reluctant prophet makes his own plans. In order to not take God’s message to pagans he doesn’t like, he gets on a ship with pagans he doesn’t know. That’s convoluted but that’s what we do. Proverbs 19:21 reminds us that “many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.” God doesn’t say anything to Jonah until after He speaks to the fish. If you’ve been told by God to do a thing and you have been running from it, repent. Let God speak to the situation. If you feel like you just got barfed up, congratulations! God is about to reiterate His mission for you. Go do it. Why? God has a plan.
I get it. I do. All the red puzzle pieces had me going nuts. I had a thought in the back of my mind that included scissors and superglue. What’s interesting with a puzzle is when the focus comes to individual pieces they no longer look alike. Racism is alive and well because we have focused on A people not THE people. The Bible says that Nineveh was three days journey across. Jonah only goes in a days worth. That’s his commitment level. 33%. Jonah never appears before the king of the city with his proclamation, yet it’s the king who issues the decree for a city wide revival. And Jonah gets mad. He sees people he doesn’t want to accept accepting God and being accepted by God.
We have to leave an us versus them mentality. Moral superiority should not exist in a true believer and follower of Christ. We should not proclaim the gospel good news to people we secretly don’t like and then whine when they receive it. Jonah went so far as to command God to kill him. Not gonna wipe out the people I don’t like? Kill me instead. That’s not “loving a brother as yourself”. That’s narcissistic martyr-ism. If we can trust White Mountain Puzzle company to include all the pieces of a puzzle, why can’t we trust the God of the universe to include all people in His grace?
I had about fifty pieces left to install. The bathroom took priority. When I came back, Froggy Cat had gotten up on the table and overturned a section of the puzzle mat. Half of my work was gone. I also think he drank some of my iced tea because I don’t remember the tankard being that depleted. God bless decaf.
My sweet kitty boy had become the worm that ate the plant. Unpredictable destruction. I was so proud of my work and what I had done and all I had achieved. I didn’t realize for the past five hours I had neglected His Royal Highness. I can’t blame him for trying to get my attention. It was well past bedtime. How many times does God try to get our attention during the mission because we have lost focus on what truly matters: His people. How many times do we forget it was not our Glory in the first place? How many times do we butcher His plan making our own?
I covered the mess that the puzzle had become. I scooped up Froggy and Ellie, turned out the lights, and went to bed. But I laid there for a long time after they had purred themselves to sleep. Somewhere in the pandemic I got very jaded. It seems to have brought out the worst in some people and I was a some people. The desire to have and be a finished work was high. The desire to do the work in love was low. I repented. I felt barfed up. I was loved with His correction.
I don’t know how the church at large will come out of this global crisis. The Conspiracy Nuts can help you with all kinds of theories there. That’s no longer a hill I’m willing to die on. What will I die for? More importantly, what will I live for? 2 Timothy 2:11-13 sums it up:
“Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with Him, we will also live with Him;
if we endure, we will also reign with Him.
If we disown Him, He will also disown us;
if we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot disown himself.”
There’s a finished puzzle rolled up and awaiting a frame. It will eventually hang in Youngest’s restaurant some day. There’s no word on what happens to Jonah after God dresses him down on the cliff top. The account rolls up on us there. We don’t need to know. Hebrews 12:6 says, “for the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and chastises every son whom He receives.” We should be quick to our own repentance and correction. When we lose the “us verses them” mindset, how God chooses to extend His grace and mercy to others disappears. Instead of forcing theological scissors and superglue on another puzzle piece, we become patient and see the uniqueness of it. That’s when finding the perfect fit happens. The puzzle looks like the box. God’s glory is perfected.
If you’re interested: www.whitemountainpuzzles.com
Musings In The MidWest 