Life is Like....A Jigsaw Puzzle?

While watching Forest Gump for the umpteenth time the other day, I gave serious thought to one of the more popular gumpisms, "Life is like a box of chocolates...you never know what you're going to get." My first thought was (which I assume would be similar to others'),  I hope I don't get one of those nasty orange-filled pieces.

In reality, we don't know what's ahead. All we can do is hope for the best, expect the worse and be happy with something in between. Actually -- that's the key to the gumpism -- being happy and making the most of what you get. Paul spoke of this in Philippians 4:12 -- I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. (NIV)

But I don't want to talk about boxes of chocolates because I don't buy them too often. They never have enough of my favorites (like caramel squares). Instead, I'd like to talk about jigsaw puzzles and I'm going to start it off with fat cells. I read a depressing article which stated that, although we can create new fat cells, we never actually get rid of the fat cells we have. When we lose weight, we're actually depleting all that gooey stuff within the fat cell. Likewise, when we gain weight, we refill all the old cells, then contribute to creating new ones. What does this have to do with jigsaw puzzles? I've been thinking lately that life might be like a big jigsaw puzzle. 

This is just a thought.

We start out with a set number of puzzle pieces that, put together, recreates the picture on the box top. In the beginning, all the pieces are sprawled out on the table and don't look like much of anything. Everyone's strategy is different, but I always start out by establishing the border and then in-filling the rest of it. Sometimes we catch glimpses of progress, sometimes it just confounds us.

Doesn't that sound like life? Everything starts out as a garbled picture of nothing until we reach that age of questions, when we start trying to figure out who we are; what we're here for, etc. For believers, the picture we're striving for is the one found within the Gospels -- Christ-likeness. A straight-forward task, sure, but it's never a straight-forward process. I think that, just like those nasty fat cells, we have a set number of pieces and each time we stray from our objective, more pieces are thrown onto the table. Our objective remains the same but now we've got extra pieces to fit into the mix -- and that makes it exponentially more difficult. But here is where life and puzzles and fat cells diverge.

We very well can't complete puzzles with more pieces than required. And it's progressively tougher to lose weight and stay in shape if all we do is add more cells to those we never even lose. But with life, those fat cells and extra pieces (sin) are completely taken away through the act of forgiveness. When Christ forgives us of our transgressions, He doesn't just bury them somewhere deep down inside, thus waiting to be added to at a later date; He actually cuts them out of our lives. In that way, we're free to get back to transforming our lives so we emulate the picture of Jesus. 

God, in His Glory, gave us the Bible as a guide. An instruction manual. A paint-by-the-numbers, if you will. The less we deviate from the picture, the more and the sooner we'll begin to look like it.  The more we deviate...well, you get the picture (or at least I hope you'll become the picture).