What if a renowned painter took his masterpiece and cut it into millions of little bits? Odd-shaped pieces that made no sense on their own, that look funny and incomplete. If you found one on the road you would immediately know this fragment is a part of something bigger. It’s an incomplete picture. A part of a whole.

What if we are puzzle pieces? Cut out of a larger design, meant to find where we fit. Only then can we see more of the beauty that is singularly realized when we are placed next to other people. When we are fitted into the spot we were originally created for.

I think we get a glimpse of this when we figure out what we are good at, the areas in which we excel. For some of us it’s math or a love of language; perhaps standing on a ballfield or painting makes our hearts sing. We discover some skill or passion and think perhaps this is my purpose. It feels good and right to hone in on, say, running or designing or counseling. We are problem solvers, peacemakers or leaders just waiting to find our spot in life. We feel energized and purposeful when we are in these roles.

So many of us are looking for where we fit in. Sometimes it’s within our own family, “What role do I play . . . the planner, the organizer or the comic relief?” Where do we plug into the work force? As the dependable one or the empathetic one? What is a good job for me with my skills and background? What about our communities, be it urban or rural? We might ask ourselves if we take or give, do we help or hurt?

These are the questions all Christians should be asking of themselves. And really it starts with the church. By church, I do not mean a particular assembly or even a physical building, but the invisible church that all believers are part of once they enter the fold. We are fitted to fill a void in the church body. Galatians 6:10: “As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.”

It’s interesting that Paul explains the church in just such a way—as a body. “So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.” (Rom 12:5) A body is only valuable when it is alive and animated, it houses our spirits and our souls, and it is the spirit that is eternal, everlasting and timeless. Just like a person, if all the systems don’t work together, something gets out of whack. We need all of the parts to work in harmony.

Have you ever heard of kinesiology? The basic definition is the study of the mechanics of body movements.

It is not limited to just muscular movements, but internal systems; like how your kidney function effects the rest of your framework. Beyond that even, how the foods we eat and emotions we deal with can take a toll on the functions of our anatomy. I find this study endlessly fascinating. How everything within our body effects everything else, and sometimes it’s hard to figure out where the problems even started? Is it a milk allergy or stress. . . I could talk about this all day.

But as someone who has historically not been a big churchgoer, I have felt challenged on this issue in the last few years. After all, the Bible tells us we need each other. We need other believers, and this was the kicker for me . . . they need us!

I have told myself: I’m in the Word, I’m in Bible studies and prayer groups, I have Christian community, I listen to teachings online. I have described it as a pieced-together church. I have all the elements without the actual commitment to a group of people. I hand-picked my group; these are people I like and get along with, what could be wrong with that?

While there is nothing “wrong” with it, I have come to see that it isn’t the full picture. Our personal friend groups are not the same as a church. When we surround ourselves with easy, amiable and like-minded people, we are not challenged to serve the unlovely or practice patience or self-control as much as we are when in a church setting—be it a huge assembly or a growing home church. It’s easier to sacrifice for people who appreciate me and love me. Now that is great, we should all be so blessed; but what about the more challenging teachings of loving the people who are difficult, if someone asks you to walk a mile, walk two or forgive someone 70x7? Am I called to do these things only in my bespoken group of friends?

Perhaps for some of us it’s easier to serve in a big setting where it isn’t personal and apt to get messy. We can sorta melt away and know others will pick up the slack. While as Christians, we are all in the big invisible church of believers, we are also to plug into a smaller piece of the puzzle. In our homes, workplaces, towns, schools and of course churches. In these places we can bring something to the table, something that might be missing. . . if we didn’t show up. God has shaped us and formed us through our experiences, our natural gifts and acquired knowledge to play a role in the body. To keep it working properly.

Have you asked God what your role is?

Have you spent time in prayer seeking His direction for your life?

What part are you uniquely suited to play?

Sometimes we need someone to pray for us. Last week, I talked to a friend going through a really hard time and she said she couldn’t even pray, I immediately knew my role, I could pray when she could not. What about when someone is tired and weary from struggles, what a blessing if we were to clean their house or make them a meal. When others have questions about the Bible we can meet them for coffee and talk it through. If a friend needs some words of encouragement, we can speak against the enemy’s lies. We all have different strengths to offer our church and community. Nobody is going to ask me to make them a meal, or it they did they would quickly have regrets; but if they are stuck on a biblical principle, I might get a phone call. This is a spot I have been fitted to fill, and I’m really glad there are people I can call to help put my house in order or drive me in bad weather.

We feel how uncomfortable it is to be slotted into the wrong spot. We are called to stretch ourselves for sure, I’ve had to bring a dish to pass (so stressful) while someone else is pushed to witness when its uncomfortable. But I sometimes wish we could have a barter system of spiritual gifts. Could someone come get my house ready for guests and I’ll talk to your co-worker about the Bible. I have actually done this and it’s great. To me this a well-working church body. Trading off our strengths and weaknesses.

This is why we need the church. I need people to speak truth over me, pray for me, expose my delusions when I’m looking at things wrong or believing lies. When we “Walk in the Spirit” we will “by love serve one another.” (Gal 5:13) Once we become believers, this is part of the call on our life. The assignment is greatest in our own homes (and usually the hardest place to walk out the fruits of the spirit). Next is to other believers, our siblings-in-Christ, this is no easy feat either. We often expect more of these people, and yet we all disappoint and need grace and understanding even when we “know better.” When we walk out in the world we often have lower expectations, so in some ways it’s easier to be forgiving and patient. Yet, we serve in all these fields, We are needed and fashioned to bring God’s truth and love everywhere we go, no matter how it’s received. No matter if it’s reciprocated. No matter if we feel equipped or not. No matter if we feel like it . . .

Our gifts are not for us to elevate ourselves, but to bring glory to God. To serve others and point towards His kingdom; away from the temporal towards the eternal, and away from death towards life. Our gifts are a shadow of God’s goodness, that when fitted together with others’ gifts, make a more complete picture of how God designed the church to function.

If we could somehow step back and look at the whole puzzle neatly fitted together, we would see how there was an intentional design all along, with a cross shaped piece right in the middle.

It is only when Christ is at that the center that any of it makes sense. His love brings order to the chaos. Meaning to the meaningless. Value to the mundane. He alone gives us purpose, fitting us into the exact spot we were shaped for in this life.

Further reading:

A lesson from childhood: Sharing

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I was sitting out in the backyard trying to write; it’s been a real struggle (more on that later). Perhaps you have noticed the lack of blog posts? My backyard is cute, although a little on the unkempt side, but with a small tree growing in the middle of the patio and built-in benches, it has great potential. If someone was more inclined, it could be quite lovely, but I have let it go pretty wild. That is until my son listened to the audio version of The Secret Garden six times in a row (I’m not even exaggerating), so now, naturally, he is all into gardening. I’m more of the let your yard go natural (or wilding) as I like to call it; spell check, however, does not agree that this is a thing.

Thanks to The Secret Garden (which I wish had stayed more of a secret) my son, in cahoots with my mother, is trying to tame our outside space. All on his own, he started weeding and watering “things” in the backyard. My mother was completely impressed with his initiative and promised to come over with a car full of actual plants. I have lost track of all the new additions: six potted plants (in teal to match my doors), ground cover and ferns galore. We (I have helped) have tilled, dug, planted and watered. How much work it is to get things back into order! My backyard, like my heart, wants to run wild.

Entropy (also known as the second law of thermodynamics) is what happens when we do nothing. Order runs to disorder. This is clearly evident in my backyard. When we moved in eight years ago the garden was lovely. Colorful flowers in oranges and purples broke up the lush greens, Hostas ran along the fence and the rocks were all in their proper places next to the house. It was picture perfect. And each spring I did mostly nothing and incidentally, each spring less flowers appeared. Over time the hostas completely died out! I blame the dog. Holes started appearing in my once flawless lawn (for which I also blame the dog). Weeds grew as big as small bushes (I somehow want to also blame this on the dog.)

In short, doing nothing resulted in our cute, cultivated landscaping going back to its natural state. Wild! Slowly at first. All the hard work someone had done held up for a few years, but eventually and almost completely, it fell into decline. I think one flower came up this year (until my dog laid on it, for clearly this was the best place in all of the yard to lay). This makes me think of the state of my spiritual life. I have spent seasons doing the ground work. Breaking up the hard rocky earth of my heart. Digging out lies that I started to believe in my rebellious and young adulthood. Daily watering seeds of truth and being rewarded with flowers and eventually fruit. Painful but necessary pruning of my once held beliefs about God were plucked out as I spent time in the Bible. More growth and more increase as long as I put the work in.

But then there would be dry seasons.

Times where I’m paying more attention to the world than reading my Bible.

I’m complaining more than praying.

Fears would start to sprout around the good fruit of my faith. I would complain and worry more than I would pray. Irritating, prickly thistles make themselves right at home among carefully cultivated flowers of peace and patience. Unlike weeds which seems to pop up without any help, the fruits of the spirit are hard won. I do not naturally go towards love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and self control (Gal 5:22). I have to get dirty, break a sweat and carefully water these plants almost daily in hopes of a yield. Yet, it just takes one stressful day at work, a differing of opinions or my check engine light coming on and weeds start sprouting up all over the place. I don’t have time for this and pop there is a thorn trying to choke out one of my fruits of the spirit. This is too much work, I’m sick of trying.

I have struggled to write these last few months. I have thought, what is the point? Have you struggled to parent? Work? Clean? Even care? Did you, like me, take in more of the world than the Word? A root of hopelessness took hold, slowly at first but then it gained ground and started to cut off my vine of joy and then my peace and slowly all my fruit started to have spots and then worms. I no longer had fresh, sweet fruit from which to eat to sustain my faith. I was instead chewing on weeds, which are bitter and empty of nutrients. My writing dried up.

Earlier this week, I told my son he should water his plants. He got out the hose and started making his way around the yard. As he turned the corner on the house to soak the ferns, the hose got stuck. I was working on the patio and I watched him start to struggle. He was pulling and pulling on the hose and it was getting more and more stuck. Instead of going back to see what the trouble was he had wrapped himself up in the hose to get more leverage and pulled with all his body weight. I yelled to him to stop! “It’s only going to get worse if you keep pulling”, I told him. “You have to go back and see where you got hung up.” From my vantage point, I could see that the hose was stuck on his bike, which was getting pulled into the wagon and was about to topple over one of the yard games. The more he pulled on it the more damage ensued.

I was instantly annoyed, but quickly saw the analogy. When something gets stuck in my faith, I want to just pull at it, hoping it will pop free. I don’t want to walk back to the other side of the house and see what is going on. As I became fearful, depressed and irritated over the last few months, I wanted to just pull free of these feelings. I didn’t want to examine why I was feeling these things on such a deep level. Sure our emotions get stuck on things—that child that won’t listen, a fight with our spouse, the car won’t start, the check didn’t come. But the deeper things, the hopelessness, the oppression that won’t let up; that’s when my thought life becomes tangled up in something solid. It is caught on a bike and a wagon and unless we go back and untangle it, the knots will only get tighter until eventually the water supply is cut off.

It was planted in a good soil by great waters, that it might bring forth branches, and that it might bear fruit, that it might be a goodly vine.

Ezekiel 17:8

Good plants need water and if the watering hose is caught in my doubt and disbelief, they will shrivel up and die. I often struggle with where God is in my pain. I find myself wondering if He cares. Does He see what is happening? My weeds of fear and worry seem to need no tending. This is as old as the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve lived in a perfect backyard. Fruit aplenty, communion with God as easy as a walk on a shady trail. No stony ground, no bugs eating away at the berries, and they didn’t even need a watering can. Everything grew easily without effort.

Yet, when this first couple decided to eat of the forbidden fruit, their days of ease (and ours) were over. Their choice led to the great responsibility of knowing good and evil. We, today, walk in that garden; one that sprouts weeds and thorns more readily than fruit. Where communion with God is easily choked out by the cares of this world—the bikes and the wagons and all the stuff that gets in the way—the more we pull at it the more entangled we become.

My son had to walk back and carefully, thoughtfully figure out how to unhook the garden hose from his things. In the same way that I have to walk back in my thought life, in my actions and see where I got hung up.

Do I care about this world too much?

Was I making this my “forever home,” when in essence, I’m just passing through?

Did I start to think the here and now is what matters most?

My comforts and my happiness so often get tangled in my “things.” I need to look good, feel good, have nice things and enjoy life to be in a good spot. When ultimately, my faith should be sure no matter what my life looks like. In good times and in bad times, like the Apostle Paul says, my faith should remain constant. My emotions won’t of course, but my faith must be on solid rock, so the storms of life won’t toss it about.

He only is my rock and my salvation; He is my defence; I shall not be greatly moved.

Psalm 62:2

What are my weeds of doubt and sorrow, but too much love for my life and my comforts? What is the worst that would happen? My way of life is threatened; my actual life is threatened? These are scary thoughts to my flesh, but they should not be to my spirit. My spirit is not made for this life. It is bound for the next—it is heaven-bound. No sickness or loss of freedom or devastation can take that from me.

We must work hard to keep our garden in order or it will quickly fall into entropy.

What does this look like for you?

For me it’s time spent alone with the Lord. Sitting in my garden in the morning before I start the day. I breathe Him in by reading the Word and and exhale His truth through my prayers.

I minister to others and let others minister to me. (I ask for others to cover me in prayer.)

I listen to teachings and ask to be lead by the Holy Spirit.

At times my flesh feels that these things are not enough, but my spirit longs for them, knowing they are the transforming of my soul.

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