As I was doing a puzzle the other night with my grandson, I began to see some parallels between puzzles and prayer. Sometimes when we’re praying about a challenge, it can feel like we’ve opened up a “puzzle” that has all kinds of fragmented pieces that we don’t know how to fit together. It can be overwhelming to even know where to begin. But, as with a puzzle, in prayer we don’t have to focus on all the pieces; we can focus on the big picture.
With many puzzles, a camera takes a picture of a beautiful scene, and then that picture is transposed to cardboard. Finally the cardboard picture is cut up into small pieces with knobs, bumps, curves, and straight sides. It’s good to know that the scene of the lighthouse, or the Taj Mahal, or whatever the scene may be in the puzzle, isn’t actually cut up or in pieces. The real scene remains untouched by the puzzle we’re putting together. Similarly, in prayer we can feel this same assurance that in reality, the wholeness of the situation we are praying about is intact, because God is one infinite whole and wholly good.
When doing a puzzle, I always start with the edges, because straight sides are the most easily recognizable pieces. If I can get the border together, it gives foundation and framework to the rest of the puzzle. And in prayer, it’s helpful to start by getting our framework clearly in view: the absolute fact that God is All and that all being exists in God, Mind, as God’s perfect self-expression of infinite goodness. Everything must fit within this standard of perfection and goodness, no matter how cut up or fragmented a situation may seem to be.
