I enjoy putting puzzles together in the winter. When I can’t be outside – or don’t want to be outside because it is too cold – I will get out our folding table, sit by the fire and work on a puzzle. This picture shows my most recent effort. It is a 3-D puzzle of a castle in Germany. It was a real challenge and I found myself staying up later than my normal bedtime “just to find one more piece”. HA! Twenty or thirty minutes later I was still looking for that elusive piece.

Something interesting occurred. I found that often the next day I would look at that puzzle and quickly see the piece I had fruitlessly been searching for the night before. There it was! Right before my eyes!

The difference was that I began looking with “fresh eyes” the next day.

That realization caused me to reflect on other situations where I felt “stuck”. I thought about some problem that I seemed to return to over and over again and seem unable to resolve. Would applying “fresh eyes” to that situation help me find the “missing piece?”

Our lives at times appear to be “puzzles”. We are not sure what God is leading us to do or what direction He wants us to take. So we may stare at the situation, determining to see more clearly. We focus on the problem, pray, read scripture, pray some more – yet we just can’t seem to find the answer we are looking for.

King David cries out to God for an answer in Psalm 22 –

1 My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
Why are you so far away when I groan for help?
2 Every day I call to you, my God, but you do not answer.
Every night I lift my voice, but I find no relief.

The next verses show a shift in David’s viewpoint. Instead of looking at his situation, he turns to God with fresh eyes. He then says –

3 Yet you are holy,
enthroned on the praises of Israel.
4 Our ancestors trusted in you,
and you rescued them.
5 They cried out to you and were saved.
They trusted in you and were never disgraced.

God is God – we are not. God’s ways are not our ways. David was able to shift his eyes from his distress to the holiness of God. To be fair, we don’t hear from David that he was immediately delivered from his problem, or that that there was a resolution that pleased David. Yet David’s willingness to acknowledge God’s holiness and God’s faithfulness in the past gave him fresh eyes to see his present situation.

I must admit that I have been discouraged by the divisiveness of the political situation all around us. I have needed “fresh eyes” to acknowledge that God, the creator and sustainer of the universe, sees what is going on, and will show Himself faithful to accomplish His perfect will in His perfect time.

I don’t need to keep looking for that missing piece – God has it in His hand ready to place it just where it belongs.