By Benjamin Raven Pressley

He is God of the void. Where we see gaps but he is busy connecting all the dots. I think if we are truthful we all sometimes look at life as a bunch of disconnected events and non-sensical jumbled up elements. I think we see life sometimes as some of us would view a ball of knotted up thread or string or something not worthy of anything but throwing away because it has become such a mess and we don’t have the time or skill to untie it all and make sense of it. In reality there might just be a knot here or there if removed could return a string back to something useful. We see messes and are quick to label something incurable or unworthy of our time and consideration. We see life as a bunch of disconnected events when if we would just look a little closer through God’s eyes we would see he is keeping it all connected and knows exactly what needs to be done to correct the situation. He keeps up with every place we went wrong or went down a trail we shouldn’t have or made a bad decision. He is not surprised or caught off guard EVER! We see life as a dark trail going through some uncharted woods, we hear all the scary sounds around us and just when it seems life can’t get any scarier the big bad wolf jumps in front of us scaring what little courage we have left out of us and we just know we will be devoured and that this is the end. And to some it does end right there because we give up and see no hope.

This is not the truth though. It is deception. God is there. He knows where we got off track. He sees alternate and safer paths he can lead us on to avoid dangers ahead that we are not yet able to handle. I see so many people that are trapped in that ball of string they have accepted as their lives struggling and seeing no way out. I see so many people that are just waiting for the bullet that has their name on it, wondering when it will finish them off, perhaps secretly wishing it would. I know people that are living their life as if they are running about aimlessly on some battlefield with every dream dying all around them, every bullet killing every hope they have while living in torment because they cannot die. The gun in their hands has long been out of ammo and they can’t even end their own life if they wanted to so they scream and cry and pray for an end to it all but it never comes. These same people curse God and blame him for not helping them. This is not the truth though. It is deception. God is there.

So many people get so caught up in hopelessness. Some people live their lives like they have been dumped out on this earth with a ten thousand piece puzzle and have been told, ‘Here is your life. Good luck with it.’ Some will dig themselves out. Some will find those corner pieces and begin to make some sense of it all even if it is only in a small way. Some will just sit there and cry like a child in a sandbox that someone has dumped sand on their heads. The pieces all fit together. As disconnected as life seems sometimes, it is connected we just have to believe this is so. And the good news is God is the master puzzle solver. He will help us. He will show us how it all fits together. When you put together a jigsaw puzzle step one is finding the corner pieces. Step two is framing the corners together and then you work at everything in the middle. People though want to start from the middle or wherever they are in life and it just doesn’t work that way. We have to establish some starting point. We have to frame our lives with hope and guidance and build from there. And just like that box of puzzle pieces has a picture of what the finished puzzle will look at God beckons us to look to him not just focus on the jumbled up pieces before us. When life is overwhelming take a break and readjust your focus on the bigger picture and don’t get lost in what seems like a hopeless pile of confusion.

We so underestimate the power of the pieces. So many are handed or pick up a single puzzle piece and think ‘What the heck is this. This is useless.’ Imagine finding some random puzzle piece on the sidewalk. It seems meaningless and worthless. We have no way of knowing what the final picture is this puzzle piece went with. But our lives are not just some random puzzle piece given to us. Our lives are a beautiful picture yet to be revealed. We want to skip right to the finished puzzle we don’t want to read the words ‘Some assembly required’.

There are certainly those among us that are better at putting together puzzles than others and even seem to live for it. Some of these people also seem to be able to help others put together their puzzles also. There are also those that just sit in their pile of puzzle pieces hoping someone will come along and put together their puzzle for them. And some even get mad at the world because no one will help them and curse and blame others accusing that they don’t even care. Some look at the progress other people have made with their individual puzzles and get mad at them because that person’s  puzzle looks so good and their puzzle looks so bad. They don’t consider the difficulties that person went through to get to where they got. And rather than rejoice in the beautiful picture another person’s puzzle has become they curse them as cruel because they have what they have and the accuser does not.

Every machine we have in this world is composed of smaller pieces. Most never consider the parts of a machine or even see inside a machine and see all the individual pieces working together that makes that machine work. Yet remove a single gear and the entire machine breaks down. Some even throw a machine away because it does not work anymore when if they would have only replaced that one small malfunctioning part and it could be working good as new. Yet God is the master mechanic. He sees what needs fixing. He can fix it if you let him. But it is your machine and he needs your cooperation. And the way to fix it may inconvenience you or even be painful but if we are willing to be patient and cooperative and willing he can fix it.

Another analogy is our own bodies when we are sick. Sometimes it may just take a pill or a lifestyle change to correct something in our bodies to make us better but sometimes it is like a cancer and has to be removed or treated in a way that is long and sometimes even painful to correct. But if it is ignored the cancer grows and kills us because we were unwilling to go through the treatment that would have made us better.

I know so many people that are just sitting there in their messed-up lives wallowing in their own self-pity. You can’t help someone that won’t help themselves. I tell them all the time to not underestimate the power of taking small steps forward. I told a depressed person the other day that won’t even get up out of bed and get dressed everyday that if nothing else they should get up everyday, take a shower, get dressed, fix their hair and put on make-up whether they go anywhere or not. Seize the day! Look yourself in the eye everyday. Go take a walk, read a book, break some bad habit. Baby steps are still moving forward. Never underestimate the power of small things. All those little things eventually add up to bigger things. You may think it doesn’t matter but I think about the story of the guy seeing starfish wash up on shore and trying to rescue them and throw them back in the water and some other person watching and laughing and telling them they can never save all those starfish. He responded by throwing one more back in and saying, ‘It made a difference to that one’.

Keep moving forward. Sometimes you just have to step back and figure out how to make that big problem into smaller manageable pieces. Have small/mini goals. If you take it little by little it isn’t so overwhelming and you get a sense of accomplishment along the way.
Don’t get caught up in all the gaps and hopeless voids along the way. Let God be God of the voids. Let him take care of connecting and pointing the way. You can do this!

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