Feb 21 - "The Missing Piece"

Psalm 63:1-8
"O God, you are my God; eagerly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you, as in a barren and dry land where there is no water."
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Have you ever seen that picture/image of the circle with a wedge missing, which rolls along until it finds the wedge that fits perfectly? If not, picture a pie or pizza with one of its eight pieces missing, leaving an empty space where something was once complete.

Are there times when you feel like that circle with the missing piece? You may go along for a while, rolling smoothly through your life. Then, all of the sudden...BAM! You stop abruptly; your life comes to a screeching halt. Maybe it's not even something that dramatic. Maybe it's just that you feel like something is missing... Sometimes the impact of the missing piece can be masked a bit because of how full our lives can be at times with people, activities and worldly possessions.

But I guarantee you, we all have a missing piece.

When we come into this world at the beginning of our lives, we are born separate from God. There is nothing really magical or complex about it; we are here on earth and God is in Heaven. Yes...He is all around us at all times in all things that are His glorious creation. But, we are not in direct communion with Him in the same way we will be when we shuffle off this mortal coil and return to Him at the end of our earthly lives.

There are worldly "fillers" to this missing piece all around us; work, relationships with other people, hobbies, material things, good times... Or worse, we as humans can abuse these worldly fillers and take them to negative extremes, forsaking any one of or many of these things for other areas in our lives; words like "workaholic", "alcoholic", "adulterer", "self-centered" come to mind. These things are ways we can take to the extreme, our desire to find the missing piece.

Why does it have to be this way? Why would God allow us, in the created perfection of His image, allow us to be born broken, with a missing piece? Is it some cruel joke? Absolutely not. It is really a gift. That may sound crazy, but I really believe it to be true.

What is this gift? It is the work each of us must do to come into relationship with God. It is the struggle we have through our lives in coming to our personal awareness of His gifts, His grace, His mercy...and most importantly...His love. Not that God is elusive, hiding this potential relationship from us. He is right there beside us, behind us, in front of us...we only need merely to turn to him.

Is there anything in your life today...think about it...really hard...is there anything you truly treasure that came easy? Whether it is the relationship you have with a close friend or spouse...or a child, now grown, whom you have sent into the world and has a wonderful life of their own...or that home project...or anything that took a boatload of blood, sweat and tears to achieve. Did any of it come easy? No. You had to work for it. You had to come through the fire, refined like gold in the crucible of struggle.

Does God need this? Is there something He receives by starting us out with this missing piece? I don't think there is. I believe the joy which comes from this gift of the missing piece is fully ours to realize.

So, do you feel the missing piece? Embrace it and know that when you fill it with things not of this world, but work to fill it with a relationship with Him, you will be made whole once again.