{"id":1387,"date":"2015-12-18T17:30:47","date_gmt":"2015-12-18T23:30:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/?page_id=1387"},"modified":"2019-06-04T04:55:20","modified_gmt":"2019-06-04T09:55:20","slug":"assemble-the-puzzle","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/study\/assemble-the-puzzle","title":{"rendered":"Assemble the Puzzle"},"content":{"rendered":"

GOD IS A PUZZLE<\/span><\/strong>
\nWe don’t think God is offended when we say that he is a puzzle. If that were not true, why did he conceal himself in pillars of cloud and pillars of fire<\/a>? And he would not have shrouded knowledge of himself and his ways in dark sayings<\/a>, proverbs and riddles<\/a>, figures of speech, words of the wise and riddles, <\/a>dreams and visions<\/a>, enigmas <\/a>and difficult problems<\/a>, <\/a><\/span>shadows, <\/a>types and patterns<\/a>, and symbols, signs and allegories <\/a>if he wasn’t purposely trying to be mysterious.<\/p>\n

Considering these truths, it seems reasonable to say that God and the Bible that tells us about him are like a giant puzzle. Both are like a zillion pieces scattered across a large table in a room filled with a dense fog.<\/a> Our challenge, if we choose to accept it, is to assemble the puzzle. But in order for us to see, God needs to shed light<\/a> on pieces of the puzzle and open our spiritual eyes and ears<\/a> so that we can begin to hear God’s voice<\/a> which teaches us how to connect the pieces together.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

When we think about it, it seems like an impossible mission. Not everyone is willing to accept this mission<\/a>. We don’t know what the rewards of solving it will be, but there is something in some of us that is hungry enough and curious enough to try.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some are curious about God but not hungry enough or thirsty enough to make a serious, sustained effort to know him. They take the easy route of paying someone else to figure God out and report their findings at church, in a synagogue, in music, in a book or at a conference. These people have only a dim picture of God that will soon pass away<\/a> and they will need to go somewhere again to get their “god fix.” The knowledge they have of God is just a shadow <\/a>and they do not know him<\/a> in a deep, intimate sense. They will get their ears tickled <\/a>every weekend by preachers and rabbis with smooth speech who tell them what they want to hear<\/a>, and they will read the Bible, but they will never come to a good understanding <\/a>of the truth about God.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Such people are ever learning without coming to knowledge of the truth<\/a>. In their spiritual poverty,<\/a> they miss out on all the wonderful things that God has prepared for those who love him<\/a> and seek him with all their heart. <\/a>They are those who think they are rich in their knowledge of God but are neither hot nor cold in terms of their love for God<\/a>. People such as these who do not hunger and thirst for righteousness<\/a> will not solve the puzzle.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Those who do hunger and thirst for God, on the other hand, have a big,\u00a0 but not impossible task before them. They have all the pieces of truth about God distributed in thousands of verses in hundreds of chapters in hundreds of pages of the Bible. And, like we suggested above, they begin in a spiritually dark place — meaning they have little or no truth or light to guide them.<\/p>\n

All they do have is a fuzzy, obscure drawing created by religious leaders (i.e. pastor, rabbi, prophet, priest, writers, etc.) who have tried to teach them what little knowledge<\/a> they have. If they have done a little Bible study on their own or been in a small study group, that is a beginning but all that teaching and learning is of no spiritual value — except that the law leads us to faith<\/a>.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

When we begin, all we have to work with is a tiny flashlight that allows us to look carefully at a few words of a few verses at a time. We scan the chapters and verses inspecting each word looking for concepts that relate to similar sounding words and concepts you identified earlier. We set those that are similar aside and keep looking for more pieces that seem to relate to the ones we have already found.<\/p>\n

Some pieces are upside down and some right side up. Sometimes it is hard to tell which is the right side and which is the back side. These are the mysteries (i.e. <\/span>parables, dark sayings, proverbs and riddles<\/a>, figures, words of the wise and riddles, <\/a>dreams, enigmas and difficult problems, figurative language, dreams and visions, <\/a><\/span>shadows, <\/a>types and patterns<\/a>, and symbols, signs and allegories<\/a>) that conceal their real meaning. At first it seems like there are more of these kinds of pieces than those that can be clearly understood, but God designed it that way to test our hearts. You just need to keep on looking and setting aside those that seem to relate to each other in a meaningful way.<\/p>\n

Along the way, however, occasional doubt rises up to confuse the process. You may remember a teaching you heard from a respected religious leader that seems to contradict what you are finding. If you want to know God as he really is, you need to forget what you think you already know about God. Take a fresh look and trust that he is now teaching you and will show you the truth.<\/span><\/p>\n

There will also be those bothersome contradictions within the Bible itself that seem irreconcilable. But you must push these conflicts aside and continue to trust that there are no contradictions in God. The only problem is in your understanding. This may cause you to doubt that you are up to the task. When this happens, remember that God is testing your heart and that those who doubt will not receive anything from God.<\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Doubt may creep in when you remember religious leaders who claim that they have assembled the puzzle and strongly imply that you should trust them for understanding. Their claims are strongly reinforced by titles, degrees, and large followings of people who praise them for their wisdom. Don’t trust them if they have a good reputation<\/a>. They are religious man-pleasers<\/a> who have reduced obedience to God down to a few rules.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

They will say that the key to knowing God is prayer, regular attendance at church or synagogue, fellowship with like-minded believers, paying your tithes, regular morning devotions and regular participation in approved religious ceremonies and traditions.\u00a0They are very convincing and it seems doable because many others seem to be prospering by following these rules. They seem to be doing OK in their spiritual lives, and they seem knowledgeable about God, so you think they might know what they are talking about. <\/span><\/p>\n

The only thing wrong with this scenario is that the picture\u00a0your religious leaders and friends have of God is an incomplete shadow. And if it is incomplete, it is wrong. If we stop to wonder how a big God can be simplified the way religion represents him to be, we will begin to understand how wrong and incomplete that picture is.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Furthermore, as you observe your own life and the lives of religious people and carefully, you notice that neither you nor they are as spiritually competent as you have represented yourselves to be. You gossip, grumble and argue about all kinds of issues — in church and out of church. You have addictions, marital and family conflict, financial problems and all the other problems that exist within the general population. When we stop to really look, no one appears to be at peace in themselves or in their relationships. You all have an appearance of godliness<\/a>, but something is missing in your lives that provides a clue that you do not understand as much as you like to have others think you do.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Indeed you all have fabricated religious lives according to a pattern prescribed by your chosen religious sects, but it is not a real picture of God. You have force-fit pieces that do not go together to make them fit — but they really don’t fit. Some pieces fit but they are upside down. And there are whole sections of the puzzle that are missing altogether. Despite the picture of Godliness you want to represent to the world, your picture of God is a mess. It looks good on the surface from a distance because you have\u00a0filled in\u00a0the gaps and\u00a0painted over\u00a0upside down pieces to make it look presentable. But upon closer inspection, you can see that something is very wrong with the picture.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

You begin to notice these problems and wonder what the truth is. After you leave religion, you notice that t<\/span>he puzzle\u00a0your friends have assembled and the one you previously trusted is smaller than the puzzle you are now assembling. Your puzzle includes\u00a0a zillion small pieces\u00a0while the old version was more like a child’s puzzle with only a few large pieces. Your unassembled puzzle pieces are scattered all over the table with hardly any space between them, while your old assembled puzzle fit neatly on a small table with nice neat borders. <\/span><\/p>\n

As you study the Bible seriously on your own with no one to guide you except God, you discover that beneath the physical image of each piece is a spiritual image that appears dimly at first but which you eventually learn to discern. And you soon learn that trying to create a picture of God using the literal words of the Bible does not work. You learn that the literal pieces do not fit but the spiritual pieces do fit. And you also find that it is not a two dimensional puzzle that you are trying to assemble but a puzzle with many dimensions to it. This fact is not mentioned on the cover of the box, but you eventually learn that the picture of God you are trying to assemble has depth to it that you were never told about and that you never imagined could exist for as long as you listened to religious people who wanted you to share the limited picture of God.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lacking a picture on a box, all you have to go on is the knowledge that God lives in a pillar of cloud<\/a>\u00a0and in a pillar of fire<\/a>. You wonder how you can realistically begin to put the pieces together if that is the only image you have. But then you remember that God has given you many promises about knowing him and understanding the mysteries of the Bible. <\/a>And then, encouraged by these promises, you continue to assemble\u00a0 the puzzle piece by piece.<\/span><\/p>\n


\nHOW TO ASSEMBLE YOUR PUZZLE<\/strong>
\nThe first thing you need to do is get rid of the box with the picture of the puzzle that your religious leaders gave you to guide you. It is a picture for a very old puzzle\u00a0of another god. It will not help you assemble your puzzle. You also need to ignore what your friends have done. Their puzzle is old, small, incomplete, and wrong. You will waste a lot of time assembling your puzzle if you try to create an accurate, meaningful picture of God if you model it after the picture that your friends and religious leaders\u00a0 have created.<\/p>\n

So what you need to do is get rid of all the help others try to give you and resolve to let God alone help you assemble your puzzle. Your puzzle, after you work on it for a while\u00a0is new, large, vibrant and multidimensional.\u00a0 It will never be fully complete but you will not care because you\u00a0will be\u00a0excited about the picture of God you already have and full of anticipation for the new aspects of God that are yet to come.<\/p>\n

Begin without a picture to guide you. You would never do that with a material picture puzzle, but that is what you need to do when trying to understand God. Best you can, try to rid yourself of all your preconceptions of who God is, how he works, and what he expects from his people. Humbly admit that you don’t really know what God looks like. That might not seem important until you recognize that he wants to recreate us to conform to his image.<\/a> That means that, as much as possible, the physical religious people we are must decrease as the spiritual person God wants us to be increases.<\/a><\/p>\n

If you thought you had a picture of what he looked like, and if you listened to others to help create that image, you will do well to repent for trusting men instead of God for creating the image you have of him. Admit that, in addition to trusting men,\u00a0you have been walking by sight and not by faith to assemble your understanding of God. Forgive those who have taught you wrongly.<\/p>\n

And after you have done all that, quit looking to others for help. They will only confuse you. More importantly, you do not need anyone’s help to know God. God has made this very clear in Jeremiah’ prophecy about the New Covenant:<\/p>\n

Jeremiah 31:31-34<\/a>: “Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. 33 But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each man teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”<\/p>\n

If you really trust God, you will accept that the time for the fulfillment of this prophecy has indeed come for you. It is not some future event that will\u00a0occur for a bunch of people all at one time. It will happen one-by-one as the Spirit is poured out on individual believers<\/a>. This is the promise of the New Covenant that was and is mediated by Christ<\/a> to people who are ready to abandon the Old\/First Covenant (i.e. the incomplete picture of God) in favor of a better covenant that allows people to know God directly.<\/p>\n

Resolve to commit as much time as it takes to assemble your puzzle. The goal is to know God and be conformed to his likeness — no matter how long it takes. Then begin by looking for a few pieces that go together. A few here, and a few there. If you work at it, you will be surprised and excited about your spiritual growth.<\/p>\n

Do not allow yourself to get frustrated for lack of a big picture of what you are trying to assemble. Be satisfied with the little sections that fit and trust that it will all come together eventually. And do not forget to look for the spiritual image that exists below the physical image — this is the key to understanding.\u00a0 Every time you find two or more pieces that fit, thank God. When you think you are beginning to see what a little section looks like, ask God to help you find the missing pieces. But keep searching.<\/p>\n

If possible, find\u00a0one or two others\u00a0to work with you. In order to be useful in the task of assembling the picture, however, your coworkers must be willing to discard their previous picture of what God looks like and proceed in faith — not by sight. If your coworkers do not have the same attitude as you about the puzzle, he\/she will slow you down and lead you astray.<\/p>\n

Always keep in mind that God has promised that those who seek him will find him<\/a>. So that is what you will do — even during the dry wilderness times. It is all part of the process by which God leads us through the wilderness of the literal Bible (i.e. the law) as he tests us to show how our hearts are inclined toward him.<\/a> And those who are faithful are the ones who enter into the Promised Land where God writes his spiritual law on their hearts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

DO NOT GET DISCOURAGED <\/span><\/strong>
\nScripture that says God’s ways are not like man’s ways<\/a>\u00a0is true in all aspects. One particular way in which it is true is regarding how he has organized truth and reveals mysteries of his word to those who would seek him. <\/span><\/p>\n

When teaching or writing, man will typically try to organize his thoughts and arguments in a logical sequence that enables listeners or readers\u00a0to easily follow and understand. In this web site, for example, we have tried to give its many pages and sub pages, paragraphs, sentence structure and order that makes some sense — at least to us. God does not write that way. God’s arguments on a topic are not logically connected as we understand logic and order. But do not let that discourage you.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

If you tried to map out the locations of various elements of connected truths on a topic, you would find them scattered throughout the Bible in places that do not appear to make much sense — at least not to us. And we do not think that God is offended to make that observation about his word. Knowing how simple-minded people are, he could have made it easier to read and understand —\u00a0but he did not. The Bible is the way it is for a reason. The way we see it, the reason is to test people about their love for God as it is revealed by their willingness to\u00a0study to\u00a0show God’s approval <\/a>as one of his children. <\/span><\/p>\n

We are not saying that there is no logic or coherence to his thoughts. We are saying, however, that our shallow minds do not easily comprehend why God chose to put information about particular topics where he did. Related truths seem randomly scattered throughout the Bible in ways that are difficult, but not impossible to understand — provided we continue studying and putting the pieces together. <\/span><\/p>\n

Initially, because his ways are not our ways, we should expect to struggle in understanding how the Bible is organized. As we show our faithfulness in study, however, he will be faithful also to reveal truths that our natural minds cannot grasp. It may take months or even years of study, but we will find truth in unexpected places. If we are sincere in our desire to know God, the understanding will come if we do not get discouraged. <\/span>
\n<\/p>\n

AUTHORS’ EXPERIENCE<\/strong>
\nIn our experience, understanding came, and continues to come, in bits and pieces over a period of many years. Because of the difficulty of understanding Biblical mysteries and symbolism, we had more questions than answers during and after study sessions. We had been trained to believe that the Bible should be taken literally only and that there was only one truth for scripture. And we lived according to those teachings for years even though they severely limited our understanding of all scriptures — especially the ones that made no sense to us.<\/p>\n

But by the time we entered the second and third year of disciplined study, we began to find little glimpses of truth in scriptures that were previously impossible to understand. And, in other scriptures that we thought we understood\u00a0because they were so familiar, we began to see spiritual truths where we had previously only seen a literal story. <\/span><\/p>\n

It is a cliche<\/a> to say, but little by little the Bible came alive for us. And now, every time we sit down to study we are filled with expectation of what God\u00a0will reveal to us.\u00a0And he never fails to uncover a new dimension to an old truth or expose a new\u00a0truth that overrides our ignorance and confusion about a particular scripture. It is exciting to\u00a0say the least.<\/span><\/p>\n

The lesson here is that, we did\u00a0not let the Bible’s structural difficulties deter us from study. We trusted God’s promise that those who diligently seek him will find him. As we were faithful, he also was faithful.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n


\nREAD WIDELY<\/strong>
\nBoth Jews and Christians have their biases when reading the Bible. Jews, of course, stick to the Torah and the Prophets while Christians tend to focus on the New Testament. The way we see it, both err gravely by choosing to limit the\u00a0scope of their reading. Each sect has its own reason for its bias, of course, but they stubbornly continue to exercise their biases at their spiritual peril.<\/p>\n

In their religious adherence to the traditions of their respective sects, they have effectively handicapped God from revealing important truths to them. To such religiosity, we say, “Get over it! Do what God says, not what your religious leaders say.”<\/p>\n

What God says is that all scripture is God breathed useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.<\/a>\u00a0Either you believe that or you don’t. And if you don’t believe it, you show that you are hopelessly stuck in your religious tradition and unwilling to receive correction.<\/p>\n

In our case, we were among those who tended to read more in the New Testament. When we did read in the Old\/First Covenant scriptures, we especially liked the Prophets, but did not spend much time in other Old Testament books. That all changed, however, when we were challenged to begin reading the first five books of the Old Testament.<\/p>\n

We don’t mind admitting that it was very hard at first, but gradually it began to make sense. The parts that made the most sense were those where we could directly relate Old Testament scriptures to New Testament scriptures. We found that there really is nothing new under the sun.<\/p>\n

To make the point about reading widely with as much emphasis as possible, we will\u00a0 go so far as to say that you cannot possibly understand either the Old or the New unless you read both parts. We will also go so far as to say that it is impossible to understand either part unless you study both parts. This is consistent with what God says about the usefulness of all scripture.<\/a><\/p>\n

If you are a Jew who does not understand Old\/First Covenant and New Covenant, you have missed the most important prophecy in\u00a0the Bible as reported in Jeremiah<\/a> and Ezekiel<\/a>. If you call yourself a Christian but you do not understand the New Covenant or the books of the prophets, you are a follower of Jesus in name only. In other words, Jews and Gentiles who do not understand how Old\/First Covenant scriptures relate to New Covenant scriptures are religious frauds. They have a form of religion but deny the power of it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The only way anyone can begin to remedy this condition is by reading the Bible widely.<\/p>\n


\n THERE WILL BE A TEST<\/strong>
\nGod has said very clearly that he tests the hearts and minds of people to\u00a0prove if they love him or not. <\/a>It is a two part test. The first part is to assemble the puzzle.\u00a0The second part is to apply what you have\u00a0learned. If you don’t assemble the puzzle, you fail the test. If you don’t apply what you have learned, you fail the test. It may sound harsh, but God has laid out this life or death proposition<\/a>. If you understand that and take it to heart, you have assembled an important piece of the picture of God.<\/p>\n

See Examine Yourself <\/a>for tips on evaluating your spiritual growth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GOD IS A PUZZLE We don’t think God is offended when we say that he is a puzzle. If that were not true, why did he conceal himself in pillars of cloud and pillars of fire? And he would not …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":754,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1387","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1387"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7888,"href":"https:\/\/thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1387\/revisions\/7888"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewaywesee.com\/religiondetoxnetwork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}