Some people just love jigsaw puzzles. Others don’t. I’m not quite sure how I feel about them, but one of them recently had some lessons to teach me, and I’m grateful.
The World Mission Prayer League is deeply committed to pray for those in the world still unreached by the gospel, to pray that the Lord would send gospel laborers to those people, and to send those he calls into service through our fellowship.
We also are working on a jigsaw puzzle.
In our Minneapolis offices, where members of our home staff work hard mobilizing prayer and supporting our fellow workers around the world, we have a meeting room wherein one whole wall is covered with a world map. We call it the “map room.” It’s where we gather for prayers, for meetings, and for coffee. It’s also where you’ll find our jigsaw puzzle table. During coffee breaks, or when one just needs a quiet de-stressing moment “away from the desk,” many of us will visit the puzzle briefly and see if we can’t make our own little contribution to the effort and help complete the puzzle with another piece.
Some puzzles we complete within a week or two. Others take much longer because they’re so difficult! We were working on one like that recently. It was a dark and moody painting of a brooding cloudy sunset, with broad swaths of oranges and blues and browns. Many pieces were virtually indistinguishable one from another. Large sections of the puzzle remained uncompleted for weeks. It had too many hard parts! And these hard parts began to make me wonder if it wouldn’t be better to pack that puzzle up and start a new one. I’m glad we didn’t.
Pris and I were blessed to go to Seattle for two weeks of vacation, and when we returned I found the puzzle in the map room completed! I’d been ready to quit, but others stuck with it. All of the hard parts had been patiently filled in. At that moment this idea came to me: our world isn’t unlike that puzzle. I looked across the room at the world map on the wall, and I thought of some similarities. In particular, it occurred to me that the world also has some “hard parts.” These are parts that remain uncompleted, unreached. Large sections of the globe remain “empty,” yet to be filled with the gospel. Seeing these parts, some might be frustrated. Others, apathetic. Either way, they’d be ready to quit. How about us? How should we respond? Here’s what the jigsaw puzzle helped me understand about the “hard parts”:
The hard parts are difficult to see clearly and understand, but with keen observation and creativity we can begin to perceive them differently and to grasp how they fit into the “big picture” of the Kingdom.
The hard parts take time. Results are slow in coming, but with Spirit-given dedication and patience we will see pieces begin to come together.
The hard parts always come last. It’s true for puzzles. It’s true also for the evangelization of the world. This also is true: The hard parts can be completed – and until they are completed, the puzzle won’t be completed. “And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations,” Jesus promised, “and then the end will come.” (Matthew 24:14) God’s plan will be completed. The hard parts, too! That’s his promise.
The hard parts demand perseverance. There’s no quitting. Our Lord doesn’t quit. He won’t quit until all peoples have heard, and by his grace, neither shall we. We will stick with it. Completing the hard parts is difficult, but not impossible, for nothing is impossible for God. Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. (Galatians 6:9)
The hard parts are completed most effectively through partnership. The eyes and minds and hands of many finished our puzzle. Similarly, we do our work in the hard parts of the world together, in cooperation with a wide variety of fellow believers and organizations. Our most precious partnership, however, is with you, the praying and supporting members and friends of the World Mission Prayer League.
Finally, the hard parts require prayer. Wait. I know what you’re thinking. “Would we really pray over a jigsaw puzzle?” Well, maybe, maybe not. But we most certainly pray over the hard parts of the map. We pray over the people groups that have little or no access to the gospel. We do so regularly and intentionally. We also go to the hard parts of the map. Very soon we will send another deeply committed family to one of those hard parts. We do so fully relying on God’s direction and provision. We live to see the mission completed.
I don’t know how you feel about jigsaw puzzles, but what do you think of the uncompleted task of making Jesus known to all the world? Will you commit to your part in completing that? Will you persevere? Will you partner with us? Will you pray?