Often we want to run ahead of God, we want things to happen now, patience is something that I often find I lack, but as I get older I am learning that God plans and thoughts are much different to mine. Life is a little like a jigsaw puzzle, at times where we are at doesn’t seem to be the right place (or piece) it doesn’t seem to fit. But as I look back I believe that God takes us through certain times to strengthen the puzzle, and the pieces do have a symmetry and interlock.
As a toddler and child it was fair to say I was hyperactive, and was often running headlong, and as I battled with childhood epilepsy and struggled with finding acceptance and self-acceptance, I often found myself striving to do things so that I could feel “normal” or to get acceptance from others. Over the years I’ve come to understand that I don’t need to strive, that God’s agape love for me, his total acceptance due to the sacrifice of his Son on the cross means that I can gradually learn to walk in tandem with God. As Matthew 11 v 28-30 puts it:
Come to me, all of you Who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you.Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest For your souls, for my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”
We need to let go of stuff, and Let God, we need to be teachable and humble before our God, and as we he can shape and build the jigsaw puzzle revealing the beautiful picture he wants to make our lives
Strings Of Love
Lord you hold me with your strings of love
Lord you remind me of times as a toddler
Of being in a harness, wanting to move quickly
Life’s exciting, life’s for living, things to do and see
Pushing ahead, straining hard, desiring to run
Yet with an even greater urgency Mum gently tugs
Her love it keeps me safe, with strings of love
Lord you hold me with strings of love
At times, more often than not, I’m a spiritual toddler
There are times when I want to dive headlong
Into surging seas, both foreboding and exciting
Often in the rush, the clamour of life, I fail to hear,
Your voice, your gentle tugs of strings of love
I’m wanting to serve you Lord with all my heart
To do all I can, to move as stung like a bee
Lord, Lord it is you I need to hear and see
The strings of love are not just behind me
But in front of me leading, that I don’t often see
That in all my straining, you’re gently calling me
To listen to you, to seek your face, to just sit and be
You my heavenly father want to embrace me in your love
Lord you need to tug and pull me into your strings of love
I desire to rest, to soak in your presence in arms of love
Mark Maffey, November 1996