Where do you fit?

Seeing our place in the bigger picture: A reflection from our 'Closer' Lent series.

I must admit I can find jigsaws a bit frustrating. Several people I know, really enjoy the challenge of completing puzzles with thousands of pieces and intricately detailed pictures - but I'm not sure I've got the patience or perseverance to tackle them! And that's even without thinking about some of the more fiendishly difficult jigsaws available that have pictures on both sides or that don't match the picture on the box!

Sometimes it feels like we are similar to jigsaw pieces. Small parts of a much bigger, much more complicated picture. Sometimes this bigger picture can be really hard to appreciate or understand and we can only appreciate our small piece of it. Often it can be hard to see the positive change or impact we are having. It's difficult to take a step back and see where we fit into the wider scene, and we don't have the benefit of a 'picture on the lid' to know what the end result is going to look like!

However, in every case, the jigsaw can't be complete if there's a piece missing (dedicated jigsaw-ers will know how frustrating that can be!). Each piece, despite it's small size, even if it is just empty blue sky or seemingly unremarkable, is important in competing the picture. It connects with the pieces around it and has a set place where it belongs as part of the whole. God says the same about us - we all have different gifts, talents, abilities and flaws, but we are all, each of us, important in His bigger picture for the world.

In many ways, each of us are part of many different 'jigsaws'. We have roles and parts to play in many different pictures: our family, our workplace, our friendships, social groups, faith communities, our local community and our world.

What are the 'bigger pictures' that you are a part of? What is role in these and where do you fit into the puzzle?

As we approach Easter, a time when God's bigger picture for the world was revealed through Jesus' death and resurrection, let's make time to reflect on and pray for each of the ‘pictures’ that we are part of, that God would bless us and all we do in each of them.