Puzzled

"The heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful,
a puzzle that no one can figure out.
But I, God, search the heart
and examine the mind.
I get to the heart of the human.
I get to the root of things.
I treat them as they really are,
not as they pretend to be."
God, pick up the pieces.
Put me back together again.
You are my praise!
Jeremiah 17:9-10,14

I used to love puzzles. Sorting through all the pieces to find the edges and then putting all the inside pieces together in places where they appeared to fit. We had a puzzle that came in a plain white box with black letters on it. Basically, there was no picture of what the actual finished product was supposed to look like.

That's how it is with us. A bunch of broken pieces of ourselves thrown around and mixed up with nothing in it's proper place until we meet Jesus. Then, the edges of ourselves begin to come together with only the Creator knowing what the finished product will look like. The rest of us are just blindly picking up the pieces of our lives and trying to make them fit in places where they just don't belong.

Once in a while, a piece from someone else's puzzle gets dropped into our pile. At first, we may not realize that the piece isn't ours - that it just doesn't fit into the picture of our lives - but we keep trying to fit it in somewhere. And once in a while, after getting all the pieces put together, you discover there are a few pieces missing, and the picture is never complete without all it's parts.

I remember sorting through (or watching someone else) a bunch of puzzles that got mixed up together. No matter how hard anyone tried, the pieces just didn't fit in the wrong puzzle.

I love that God can tell the difference between what belongs in our lives and what doesn't. He can sort through the pieces and put them all in the right places. He can even fill the empty spaces left by the missing pieces. But we have to ask him for help. He'll let us put the puzzle together ourselves and wait patiently as we struggle. Then, sometimes gently, sometimes not so gently, He will pull apart the things we forced into place and replace them, putting everything back in order, and loving us the whole time.

Working puzzles is always more fun when you have help.

Picture by Artem Chernyshevych

Why the Love Boat Theme Song is in My Head

The title of this could be either "Why the Love Boat Theme Song is in My Head" or "Road Map Through My Brain".

My head can be a scary place. Come, take a journey with me if you dare.

I woke up this morning after a somewhat restless night. I had a song in my head, which is pretty normal for when I wake up. The song was Follow You by Leeland.

That's not a bad way to wake up. Then, as I was thinking of these lyrics from the chorus:

I'll follow you into the homes that are broken.

Follow you into the world.

Meet the needs for the poor and the needy God.

Follow you into the World.

I was reminded of a conversation I had a while back with a friend from the UK. We were talking about meeting someday in real life, and how we would like to visit each other's country. She said she wanted to travel to see the world. I said I wanted to travel to change the world.

As I thought of her words, this song came into my head (are you lost yet?):

Then, I remembered an episode of The Love Boat with Ethel Merman singing the first part of that song (I can't find proof of this, but in my head, that happened). So then, of course, I started to hum the Love Boat theme song.

Welcome to my brain on little sleep.