The Pilgrim Continues His Way

Lord Jesus Christ, Teach Me to See — Part 7

Teach Me to See Creation and Relationship

I love doing crossword puzzles and jigsaw puzzles. I begin every morning with the daily crossword. When I finally fill in the last answer, I am amazed at how all the words fit together.

A jigsaw puzzle is much the same. At first, the pieces appear to be a confusing collection of colors and shapes. Some pieces seem as though they could not possibly belong anywhere. Yet, one piece at a time, a picture begins to appear. When the final piece is placed, what began as a pile of disconnected fragments can become a masterpiece.

I feel the same sense of wonder when I watch an artist turn a blank canvas into a scene that seems almost real. I also enjoy seeing someone take an old, neglected house and remodel it. Walls are removed, broken places are repaired, and rooms that once seemed useless are filled with new life.

Have you ever put a puzzle together, painted a picture, or remodeled a room or a house?

Life has often felt like a puzzle to me. I could see some of the pieces, but I could not understand how they fit together. At times, I tried to force a piece into a place where it did not belong. At other times, I was certain that an important piece was missing.

That is how the Pilgrim and the professor felt when they sat down with the Skhimnik in the Sixth Meeting of The Pilgrim Continues His Way. They possessed several pieces of the puzzle of salvation, but they could not see the complete picture. The Skhimnik helped them understand that the goal of the spiritual life is union with God. Prayer is the bridge that leads us from where we are into a deeper awareness of that union.

The piece we most often misplace is this simple truth: God is love.

The other pieces show us what that love looks like. Jesus taught us to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Genesis tells us that we are created in God’s image and that God breathed the breath of life into us. God placed humanity in a garden filled with plants and animals and gave us the responsibility of caring for it.

We live in a universe filled with suns, moons, stars, and planets. We live upon the earth alongside countless plants, animals, and other human beings.

“Of course we do,” you may say. “Everyone knows that.”

Yes, I know. But we sometimes forget what that means: we are in a relationship with creation.

We are in a relationship with other people. We have a relationship with ourselves. The relationship holding all the others together is our relationship with God.

I needed a long time to recognize that God is in the remodeling business.

God takes what is broken and patiently works to restore it. God repairs damaged relationships, removes walls that should never have been built, opens windows so the light can enter, and breathes new life into rooms we thought were beyond repair.

I memorized John 3:16 as a child: “For God so loved the world that he gave…”

God loves the world. God loves creation. God loves other people, and God loves me just as I am. But God also invites me to trust divine love enough to grow, change, and become capable of loving more fully.

I am far from perfect. I need more than an occasional tune-up. Some parts of my life need to be remade, and that remodeling takes a lifetime.

The remodeling happens as I grow in grace. God’s love gradually produces within me love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. God teaches me to see other people as God sees them. God gives me reason so that I can listen with wisdom, act with compassion, and speak with love.

But I need the breath of God continually filling me with love.

I must also repent. Repentance is not merely feeling guilty about the past. It means allowing God to change my mind, redirect my steps, and remodel my heart. It means letting go of prejudice, hatred, fear, selfishness, and everything else that damages my relationships with God, myself, my neighbors, and creation.

When my children were young, they sang a church song called “Kids Under Construction.” Its message was simple: God is not finished with us yet.

That is still true of me.

I am under construction. Some rooms need repair. Some walls need to come down. Some windows need to be opened. There are pieces of my life that I still do not understand, and I sometimes wonder where they belong.

Yet God has not abandoned the puzzle or walked away from the remodeling project.

As God’s Spirit continues to breathe love into me, I begin to understand the picture revealed in Galatians 3:28: the walls separating Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female are removed because we are all one in Christ Jesus.

God’s love reaches beyond the divisions we create through race, social standing, gender, nationality, denomination, and prejudice. Grace teaches me to recognize the image of God in every person. It also teaches me that I am part of creation, not its owner, and that caring for the earth is one way I love my Creator and my neighbors.

Perhaps life is both a puzzle and a house under construction. God patiently helps us discover where the pieces belong while remodeling the places within us that no longer reflect divine love.

When the pieces begin to fit, a picture appears: love God, love others, love yourself, and care for creation.

The work is not finished. Neither am I.

But, by mysterious grace, the Master Artist still holds the brush, the Carpenter is still at work, and the missing pieces are slowly finding their place.

Lord Jesus Christ, teach me to see.
Breathe your love into me.
Teach me to listen with wisdom,
act with compassion,
and speak with love.
Remove the walls that divide us,
restore the relationships I have damaged,
and continue remodeling my heart
until my life reveals your mysterious grace.
Amen.