I love this scripture, and not just because it was my last theme as a youth. It's a wonderful scripture with a good message, and I wish we shared the full thing more often, rather than just the beginning. My visiting teaching companion and I actually shared it as part of our message for the month and I loved the thoughts that we had.
My companion said that this scripture is wonderful because it illustrates a process. The transformation we go through from imperfect beings, from the natural man to a godlike being and a joyous, perfect creation, is not instant. It does not happen in a moment or in the twinkling of an eye. Rather, it occurs over years and years of striving. It takes a lot of work, and a lot of mistakes. We fall and we stumble, but if we get back up and keep moving, we can make it someday. By God's grace, we can make it.
While she was speaking, I was thinking, and what crossed my mind was the relationship between "perfect" and "complete." In the scriptures, as I've heard many times in Sunday School, "perfect" means "complete" more than it does "without flaw." I love that meaning and relationship. God just wants us to become complete. And Christ can complete us- we can "be perfect in Christ" as the scripture says.
This brought to mind the idea of a puzzle. I imagine that each of us have one- our own puzzle, with a unique image that illustrates our lives. We are given the pieces when we are born, and all our lives, we try to solve them. Most days, we put pieces in place. Others, we knock them out, or lose them, and then we have to get on our hands and knees and search. But as we work to become better people, as we live and grow, our puzzles gradually take shape.
Yet, at the end of our lives, when we look at this puzzle, we will find that it is still incomplete.
There are pieces missing! Vital ones to the final picture. They just barely obscure the image. We may have a vague idea of what the picture could be, but we cannot see it. The pieces are missing. So we get down and we search everywhere. We look under tables, between couch cushions, around corners, in vents, in cupboards and down drains. We look everywhere. But they are nowhere to be found, and the puzzle has to be finished. Time is running out.
When we have searched as long and as hard as we can, we finally slump down to the floor, burying our heads in our arms. We have done all we can and there is nothing else we can do- we have fallen short. This is when we feel a gentle hand on our shoulder and a question. "Is this what you were looking for?"
We look up to find our older brother there. His face is kind and filled with love and sympathy. His hand is outstretched, and in it, we see our missing pieces, the ones we could not find. He gives them to us, and we cry tears of gratitude. Now the puzzle is complete, right on time. And the picture is beautiful.
Christ has the pieces that we do not. Once we have done all we can, searched everywhere we can look, placed every piece we have, then He comes and fills in the gaps in our puzzles. In the hymn "Where Can I Turn For Peace," in the third verse, there is the line "reaches my reaching." This is exactly what He does. We reach as far as we can, straining for just another inch. Once we can go no further, He extends His arm and takes our hands.
So we reach out! We come unto Christ, we area perfected in Him. He reaches our reaching, completes our puzzles, and makes us whole.
The other beauty of this is that this too is not an instant transformation right before judgment. In truth, He is right beside us as we work on our puzzles. He guides us, and helps us when we don't know what to do next. He is beside us throughout our life, and guides us to perfection, to completion.
And we now "can in nowise deny the power of God" for we have seen it! We have lived with it beside us every day. He has guided us in our trials and our joy, redeemed our sorrows and our sin, and all we need to do is reach just as far as we can, and He will do the rest.
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment