Pieced Together

 “I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted…” (Job 42:2) 

Back when things first shut down because of the pandemic, our church secretary decided to use some of her spare time to spruce up the bulletin boards around the church. She has some amazing artistic flair, transforming the bulletin boards from places to staple pictures and announcements, to beautiful works of art. 

At one point I saw her cutting up pieces of colored construction paper into hundreds of squares, rectangles, triangles, and other shapes, all about one or two inches. She then started to paste each square meticulously onto the bulletin board behind the sanctuary. This process took a couple of weeks, and at first I couldn’t see any rhyme or reason to her approach. It started out with a sea of blue, then she added some patches of yellow and brown and red and white. Eventually a picture began to take shape from the chaotic array of scraps of paper. The figure of a person appeared – a man, with a beard. Then we could see that the man was carrying a cross. Clearly, our secretary was creating a mosaic of Jesus on his way to Calvary.

After affixing thousands of scraps of paper onto the bulletin board, this is the final product that emerged:

Truly, a work of beauty. Shout-out to Melissa Griffin. Well done!

Every time I look at this beautiful mosaic, I am reminded of the amazing providence of God in our lives. You see, at any moment in time, our life is like a single scrap of paper. We really don’t know what the present moment means – good or bad – or how it fits into the larger picture of our life and the world. But by the providence of God, all the scraps of our lives are perfectly pieced together into something amazing and beautiful. In God’s mysterious and unsearchable wisdom, God takes the jagged edges of suffering and sorrow and confusion and chaos, and makes them fit alongside the more orderly and geometrically perfect squares and circles. God takes the dark and gloomy colors of our trials and tribulations, and places them perfectly alongside the bright and vibrant colors of our seasons of joy and gladness. Even the unspectacular ordinary colors and shapes find their place by the providential hand of God.

Often we wish that we wouldn’t have to go through certain things in our lives. I get it. Nobody really wants to experience tragedy, loss, brokenness. But if I were to take all of those things out of my life, then it would be like taking a handful of pieces from the mosaic. When you look at a mosaic with pieces that have been taken out, you notice the empty spaces more than you do the overall picture. Every experience in life has a place in God’s providence. Every experience is a piece of the beautiful mosaic that God is creating you to be. To quote Eugene Peterson (who was quoting Paul), “we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.” (from Romans 8:28, The Message)

"I know that you can do all things. No plan of yours can be thwarted." 

A guy named Job (the one in the Bible, not the one who invented Apple – his name was Jobs) was extremely bitter and perplexed about the tragedies that had befallen him. He railed against God, demanding that God explain himself. When God finally responded, God didn’t answer Job’s questions. Instead, God gave Job a glimpse into all the workings of the world over which God is sovereign and exercises complete control – from the musings of the human heart, to the clapping of thunder when lightning strikes, to the placement of the stars in the sky, even to the creation of a bird that cannot fly (the ostrich). God’s point is to remind Job that God is God, and Job is not. God is the one who is working through every person, every creature, every natural occurrence to redeem the world according to God’s plan and purpose.

Here’s what Job said after God had finished answering Job: “I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted… Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.” (Job 42:2-3)

You see, at any given moment we won’t truly understand the meaning or purpose of what is happening to us, good or bad. But we don’t have to understand what is happening, because God has it all well in hand.

God really does work all things for the good.

Ultimately, God is enough. God is always enough.