Whose Puzzle Are You Doing?

These are notes I took from a recording of a Christian radio program from KEYY 1450 AM a few years ago. I thought I had downloaded the audio file of it, but I can’t find it now, and I can’t find the website to be able to source it. This story was told by a Christian woman who goes around giving presentations on turning one’s life over to Christ. This is an actual dream she had.

In the dream she is on stage ready to give a presentation. She does this often, so this isn’t anything new to her. This particular time, though, there is a big table covered with puzzle pieces on the stage. She realizes that she is supposed to put the puzzle together. When she starts doing the puzzle, she notices that all the pieces are black, making it very difficult. Adding to the confusion, people from the audience keep coming up and adding more black pieces to the table. She starts to feel very frustrated wondering how she’s ever going to get all of it put together.

After a while she notices Christ standing off to the side. She mentions how He just stood there watching, not forcing his help on her. Finally He says, “Would you like to see the puzzle I have for you?” “This isn’t it?” she asks. He goes over to the puzzle and takes a handful saying, “These belong to your daughter.” He takes another handful, saying, “These belong to another family member, but you don’t want her to feel the pain. These are the consequences of her choices, but you don’t want her to feel them.” Then He takes the last handful and says, “These are your trials, and they’re heavy, but you weren’t meant to carry them, will you give them to me?” She says “yes,” so He takes them and brings out 3 big yellow puzzle pieces and hands them to her. She says, “I’ll be done in no time and then what will we do?”

Jesus answers, “We’ll play.”

She responds, “I don’t know how to play.”

She said that he took her off stage and they went outside to find some lion cubs romping in the grass. She has a love for these animals so it was an interesting twist to the story for her. She and Jesus spent time playing with them.

He says, “You will know you are doing someone else’s puzzle when we don’t have time to be together to play.”

She said, “I’ve been handing back other people’s puzzle pieces ever since.”

End of dream.

Her commentary (kind of sketchy, but hopefully enough to get us thinking):

Jesus said, “My yoke is easy.”

In the Torah, the law was called the heavy yoke.

If you sit at his feet and learn his word from him then His yoke is easy.

Studying the Bible is supposed to be experiential.

Figure out if the puzzle pieces are yours; learn to listen, to discern, ask God about our next step-to know which are black pieces and which are yellow pieces–could make you really unpopular.

You need to be firmly connected to Jesus to know ultimately what is best for that person–we can’t take away others’ pain–sometimes they need it to be able to come to Him.

New definition of being a Christian woman: Living life loved.

Realizing that God sees me as a child, we are to be childlike–not childish; He will help us to uncover our sense of childlikeness. When we were wounded our growth was stunted.

3 things we can do.

1. Practice God’s presence. We were created to thrive in God’s presence. Unless we are spending time in His presence today, we are a mere shadow of what we can be. “Lord define me, show me who I am.” Learn to meditate. “Wasting 5 minutes a day with God. Sitting in a chair. Lord I’m yours. I’m going to sit in your lap and just sit there.” We are already in His presence. We just need to realize it and focus in on it. When you inhale: Oh Lord Jesus; exhale: I belong to you.

2. Living cherished. “Here I am! Your bundle of joy!” I can’t do anything to make Him love me more. Nor could I mess up so badly to make Him love me less.

Lucy (caller): Definition of feminism: Let go and let God take care of us.

How do you give back the puzzle pieces? Ask the Lord how to do it. He will help you figure it out.

If when the alarm goes off you think, “Oh! Another day!” Then we need to spend time in His presence so we can say, “I can forgive them, because Jesus just forgave me.” Get rid of the gritted teeth.

Mary (caller): How to balance the seriousness with having fun. The children see me as not a fun person. Go to God: Repent; Closure; unconditional love. He will bring up the thing that we need to repent of.

3. Pursue the redemption of your pain. We are born with incredible giftedness; enemy sees that; he will use people to hurt people; well-meaning people, nice teachers, etc. to derail us from reaching our potential. Many women don’t know what they are gifted at because every time they do something they get criticized about it. Even if we’re 55 we still have the gift. The gifts are irrevocable.