This week’s first word is “pieces”. It came to me during quiet time on Monday. Today is Thursday and it still keeps popping up. So I think God must want me to ponder it. (One gift of being a “slow processor” is the ability to delight in chasing ideas down — or , at least, chasing them around.)
“Pieces” imply a whole. I immediately think of a puzzle. I think of a friend who recently spoke eloquently about racial reconciliation in her church’s video series - and a significant part of the visual on their set was puzzle pieces. Black and white.
I also think of the fortune that showed up in my cookie the last time we had Chinese takeout (which was also the first time in a very long time, thanks to the pandemic and our favorite Chinese takeout place’s proprietors having had to close temporarily). My fortune said “God can heal a broken heart, but He has to have all the pieces.” I was stunned - that had to be the most unusual fortune cookie I’d ever gotten. I wondered if this, too, was a message from God. What pieces am I holding back? Am I truly offering Him a broken spirit and a contrite heart?
I think, too, of the passage in I Peter 2 where he calls us stones, being built into God’s house, His temple, with Jesus — Who was Himself broken and rejected — as the Cornerstone. I think of I Cor 12 where Paul says we are all different , unique parts of the body of Christ. I think about how Jesus Himself likened His body to the Jerusalem temple, and how Paul says we are collectively the temple of the Holy Spirit. I think about John 1, where we’re reminded that the Word was made flesh and dwelt— tabernacled — among us. And about the long stretch in Exodus where Moses is on the mountain for forty days and forty nights in God’s presence, sealing the covenant, and God spends most of the time — or at least most of the recorded words— giving detailed instructions about how to construct His tabernacle: His dwelling place. Then He gives instructions about how to observe the Sabbath: His gift of rest. And only after all of that does He give the stone tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments.
How in the world did I get the idea (which I confess to having had most of my life) that the Ten Commandments were the only thing God gave Moses on the mountain?! It appears that they were only a small part of the conversation: the very last part. And one could argue they were hardly the biggest gift, and that to assume that they are would be to overemphasize our part in the covenant. The covenant initiated with Abraham, and reconfirmed with his descendants at the time of Moses, has always been primarily God’s promise to His people, ever since He “cut the covenant” with Abraham. (Pieces again - He literally cut the animals into pieces Himself.). He is determined to stay with us — the tabernacle, the Word made flesh, the Spirit indwelling our hearts. He is our rest, our Sabbath. He is not only the fulfillment of the Law, but also the power we need to live accordingly: the joy and motivation and love we receive and give back to Him.
My other word this week is “broken.” Somehow “broken” has bubbled up over and over, along with “pieces.” “Broken” can mean wounded, damaged, in need of healing or fixing. It can also mean dysfunctional, inoperative, just not working. Over and over this summer I’ve been thinking- and saying- “this world is so broken”. At least one of my kids has remarked on that habit, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if residents, fellows, or others at work have also noticed.
I don’t think it’s wrong to lament. God knows how broken our world is! I admit to having high expectations of being right, working well, fixing things. And I believe what I’ve been hearing this week is a gentle reminder that the primary responsibility for repair lies with the One Who created us in love and has already done the work to fix the brokenness, heal the wounds, put the pieces together — molding us all into His glorious Body, working beautifully and harmoniously in His restoration project.
Without Him we can’t expect to put all the broken pieces back together. But with Him — we can expect the repaired, restored world to far surpass anything we could imagine.
Prophetic words: take and eat!