It would be easier if…

Here we are, me and my littlest boo (let’s call her Five because that’s how old she is) sitting in the basement building a puzzle. She was so cute stacking the pieces of her anatomy puzzle. You see that pic at the top? The pieces stack according to how our bodies are made from the inside out. 

About halfway through it, Five decides to start stacking the pieces and trying to put them in the spaces at once. So instead of placing the muscled leg, followed by the organ leg, then the skin covered leg and finally clothed leg one by one she stacked each leg together and tried to put them in the spot. Logically, that makes sense. Realistically, it was a hassle. By the time she’d get it to the spot some of the pieces had moved around so she had to jam them in there. Then move some around so they would finally fit. After she tried that with one leg, she did the next leg the same way and one of the arms. 

Finally, after watching Five struggle, I chimed in “You know, it’d be easier and more efficient if you’d just place one piece in at a time.”

She looked up at me and said “No, it won’t.” and she continued to struggle to do it her way for a few more body parts. 

I watched her struggle. Inwardly, I shook my head and got frustrated that she didn’t take my advice. As I retold my advice, I heard Holy Spirit say “Look at you. That’s how you act sometimes. You have to do things your way even when it’s not working and I’ve told you there’s a better way.”

That was a sobering moment. I can’t even remember everything that went through my mind after He said that. One thing I’ll share is that I had to ask myself why I do that. Five loves me. She trusts me. We have a great time together. And in that moment, I could tell that she knew I was right, but she insisted on struggling through it by finishing it her way. 

Why do I try to skip steps to fast forward to end? I do it my way and it ends up taking longer because my way ignores the fact that there is a process. Five was supposed to be able to see how each piece fit on each other. She thought she had figured out the point of the puzzle and decided to jump ahead and she missed key elements and in turn took longer than she would have if she would’ve just gone step by step.

To get to the finishline, it would be easier if we would just learn to listen to the One who loves us and be faithful to the process. There is something to be gained at each point.