Important Puzzle Pieces
Do you ever feel like you don’t belong? Do you sometimes feel like you don’t fit in? Or do you think that nobody will realize if you’re missing? I think it’s natural to wrestle with these thoughts from time to time. I think I especially struggled with these thoughts in junior high and possibly high school. But I’m sure these thoughts have come and go from time to time since then.
Our church started a series on Sunday called The Body. I’m excited for this series. I think it will provide a reminder to all of us at our church that we’re all important. We all matter. And we all play an important role in the body.
This past summer, our family went camping with a few other families. During the weekend outdoor chapel service, the chaplain shared an exercise that helped to illustrate this. As campers arrived at the amphitheater, they were given a puzzle piece. No body knew anything about their puzzle piece. They didn’t know how it fit together to make a bigger, complete picture. After the chaplain shared a few words, he called up everyone to a table to put together their pieces. As the campers brought their pieces together and began working together, they began to create a beautiful picture. The picture wasn’t complete until each and every piece had been added to the whole. If someone had withheld their piece, the picture would have a big hole in it. If someone didn’t put their piece in the right place, the puzzle wouldn’t work.
This simple puzzle exercise provided a great tool for reminding us all that we all matter, we belong, and we fit in – just right – to make the whole picture complete. We are each an important piece of the whole!
Where do you fit in? How has God gifted you in a way that makes the body more complete and beautiful?
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.