Have you ever noticed the oddness of a single piece of a jigsaw puzzle? It has no basic shape, pieces are cut out around it, and there are weird balloon-like protrusions jutting out from its sides. Imagine stumbling upon one of these pieces by itself and not knowing that it’s a piece to a puzzle. You would immediately discard it believing it to be a worthless item. But it’s not worthless, not to the person who made it. To the one who created the puzzle piece, it’s beautiful. All the weird angles and funny balloon-like protrusions are part of its creator’s perfect design to connect it with other puzzle pieces and reveal a bigger picture. You can only understand the identity and purpose of a puzzle piece when you understand what it was created for.
How many hours do you think you spend a day trying to figure out your identity? How many books do you read, how many television shows do you watch, and how many internet sites do you search trying to understand who you are and what your purpose is? And even after all that time I bet you still walk away feeling just like a single piece of a jigsaw puzzle, strange and unusual, worried that you’ll be discarded and seen as worthless. Maybe you need to see yourself as your Creator sees you. Maybe, also like a single piece of a puzzle, will you only truly understand your identity and purpose when you understand where you fit into His bigger picture.
In Psalms 139:13-14 the psalmist writes, “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.” What a beautiful description of your creation! Before you were even born God fearfully and wonderfully put you together. What you look like, the way you think, how you relate to other people, and every other characteristic that makes up you were carefully and purposefully set into place. You were perfectly designed by the Creator of the universe! In his letter to the church in Ephesus Paul writes, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10). Not only are you perfectly designed but you were made that way for a specific purpose – to do good work. To go into the all the world sharing the same love that Jesus shared with us throughout His life, death, and resurrection from the grave. In other words, every single thing that makes you who you are, no matter how odd and strange, are all part of your Creator’s perfect design to connect with others and reveal the bigger picture of God’s Kingdom and glory.