Pieces of God

I always say that I am not the sort of person who gets images and visions when I pray. Yet, just occasionally I do see something. It is never a mighty mountain, blossoming flower or tall tree, as is fashionable, but always something strange and complex. Most I note with interest before moving my prayers swiftly onwards, one however has stuck with me for many months now...

I was trekking down a long, dark tunnel. The wall at the end of the tunnel was lit up and hanging on it was a huge piece of jigsaw. It was a piece of God. Walking down that tunnel, finding the jigsaw piece and being able to pick it up were all pretty exciting, but then I realised that I now had to carry it all the way back through the dark tunnel in order to slot it into place. The piece was very heavy and difficult to hold on to and the journey back down the tunnel seemed a lot longer than the outward journey had been.

I'm sure no one needs the potential meaning of this explained but humour me. We all have exciting times when we're discovering more of God: times when He is giving us fresh revelations about Himself or His plans for us. But once the revelation has been made we need to spend some time fitting it into our lives. It may be difficult to hold on to His word and it may seem to place a burden on us but if we just rush down every tunnel we can find, without ever picking up what we've been shown, we will never see the bigger picture. The journey we take when we are trying to understand all we know of God may seem very long and difficult compared to the excitement of discovery, but that is where faith is built. Anyone can be faithful when God appears before them in full glory, real faith is when we are struggling down a dark tunnel, under a heavy burden, perhaps not even sure we are going in the right direction at all, and still we choose to say, "God, you are my God. I search for You, I thirst for you..." (Psalm 63:1)