Your Piece of the Puzzle
I think it's awfully easy for us to feel lost, like we don't know what we're doing or what we're supposed to be doing. We know the big picture-- that we're here to serve and love as God loves, pointing people back to Him. But how do we do that? We find our piece of the puzzle.
Find your puzzle piece.
Everyone has a piece of the puzzle to help build a free world, and each person’s puzzle piece will look different. We humans are phenomenally creative beings who have solved impossible problems and overcome incredible odds. We can do that, again, with slavery. Injustices worth fighting often don’t have formulas that fit all advocates. So, move forward and find yours. If you’re sincerely looking for a way to effectively help, you’ll find one. -Laura Parker, Relevant Magazine
We can't do it all. That's really hard to admit sometimes, especially this time of year when our to-do lists run longer than kids' Christmas wish lists.
I've been following a few blogs centered around pursuing a more minimalist lifestyle, and part of that pursuit is recognizing what your unique eight-foot assignment is, in the words of Emily Freeman. Each of us has a different assignment, a different focus, a different small-scale purpose we're meant to live out.
We can't do that very well when we're constantly focused on what the people around us are doing. We need to figure out what our specific talents and goals are and stick to those. They'll change with time and circumstances like many things do, but they're still unique to us.
Some opportunities will suit us perfectly, while others will be a better fit for someone else. That's not a bad thing. It makes sense that if we're all different, we'd find different ways to use our talents and wouldn't all be good at the same things. We should be excited to look for ways our unique blend of gifts can be put to good use instead of just jumping at the first chance to do something.
Your piece of the puzzle looks different from mine, and that's actually a good thing. It gives us both the opportunity to find the place where we fit without competing with one another.
Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.
Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” ...Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. - 1 Corinthians 12:12-21, 27
We all need each other. Our gifts and talents work best in cooperation with those of the people around us. None of us can do it all, but together we can do quite a lot. And the God who made us is capable of doing even more than we could ever ask or imagine, and He often chooses to move through us, one piece of the puzzle at a time until it's finished.
So what does your puzzle piece look like?
Image source: http://www.washingtoncountywisdems.org/2015/08/17/needed-puzzle-pieces-2/