Connecting the Dots....

Have you ever found yourself suddenly with so many challenges and puzzling situations that seem to be overwhelming you? Or perhaps if you are the type who prays, and when you begin to pray to God about these situations there seems to be so many of them to be prayed for that you even begin to tire in the place of prayer, because you don’t even know which ones of the many challenges you should begin with. If you have ever found yourself in any of these situations, then you are not alone.

Lately, I have had series of giant-sized challenges fly at me at very high speeds, and with each challenge before me, I pray and ask God to help me connect the dots between the challenge and His ultimate plan for my life. I ask Him to give me the wisdom to see the relationships between various pieces of information I have, and to enable me take intuitive steps that lead me to His truth and wisdom.

I have realized that the solving of puzzles or many problems in life is often a matter of connecting the dots. Many times all the clues are there for us, but we have not made the necessary connections. It then becomes important to learn to look for the bigger picture, and then see patterns emerge from there.

Sometimes, however, we may even have to go beyond the dots in order to connect them, as the infamous exercise of “connect these dots without lifting your pen” teaches us.

According to Laurie Beth Jones, in her book Jesus in Blue Jeans, “people hire consultants to see the patterns that they themselves may be too close to see. Diagnosticians connect the dots between different tests and medical data. The act of neurons leaping from one synapse to another constitutes the act of thought itself. If the dots are not connected, a thought does not occur.”

When Jesus Christ took all the laws and the prophecies and explained them in simple stories, he was connecting the dots for us. As He speaks, through the Bible we begin to see the pattern emerging of God’s love.

“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you (Matthew 6:33).”

Jesus taught us to connect the dots, and so I must.