Connect The Dots

Pride is a terrible thing.
It seems so innocent but is so harmful to our well being and the well being of others.
Pride keeps people at arm’s length rather than draw them close.
Pride makes it difficult to connect the dots.

Remember those connect the dots puzzles?
You had to know your numbers or your letters in order to complete the picture.
You painstakingly began at the number one, or the letter “A” and drew a line to the next consecutive number or letter.

When you were all done there was a picture that had not been there before.
It really was there all along, but the right eyes were needed to see it.
I loved trying to figure out what the picture could possibly be.
I never wanted to color it when it was completed; I just wanted the next challenge.

We often play connect the dots with people.
It is not a good thing to do.
From our vantage point, through our lens, we have them all figured out.
We connect the dots, not necessarily in order, to see the hidden picture.
Often we are 100% wrong.

We have connected numbers when we should have been connecting letters.
We think we know what the finished picture will be, so we hurriedly draw our own lines.
Too bad it is our picture we are completing, not the picture waiting to be discovered.

It is unfair of us to play connect the dots with people lives.
Without the whole story, we are connecting the dots all wrong!
Connect the dots pictures can often look like something else.
To see it correctly, you have to take time and connect the right lines to the right dots.

But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. At dawn He appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around Him, and He sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do You say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing Him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with His finger. When they kept questioning Him, He straightened up and said to them, “If any of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin. (John 8:1-11)

Adultery was an offense that was punishable by death.
It takes two people to commit adultery; yet only the woman was brought to Jesus.
The man was equally guilty but all fingers, all accusations, pointed directly to her.
It was a trap.

It was a double bind; they decided that there was no way Jesus could win.
The teachers of the law and the Pharisees didn’t know Who they were trying to trap.
Jesus is always victorious; there is no double bind that could ever ensnare Him.

The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were playing their own game of connect the dots.
They connected them all wrong.
Their picture, when finished, spelled the word GUILTY.
They had to do a lot of interesting twists and turns to make that picture.

Jesus was finishing His own connect the dots picture.
He was connecting the dots with His finger as He drew on the ground.
In that silent moment, the onlookers saw themselves in what He was writing.
It was not a pretty sight.

They could not throw the first stone because the stone would boomerang back to them.
Some connected numbers.
Some connected letters.
All saw His finished picture…GRACE.

Grace because their connections were so flimsy.
Grace because the same conclusions could have been drawn about their lives as well.
Grace because all of a sudden the stone got very heavy in their hand.

Jesus connected the dots perfectly.
All the other pictures and scenarios paled in comparison.
He was right.
He always is.

I usually connect the dots all wrong.
I don’t have all the facts.
I see what I think the finished picture should be.
It is distorted and untrue.
The conclusions could rightfully boomerang right back to me.

Sweet Jesus, thank You for writing GRACE upon our hearts.
Precious Lord, thank You for connecting the dots of my life perfectly, even if there are many twists and turns before the final picture is completed.
Lord Jesus, help me to extend that same connecting grace to those you place around me. Give me Your perspective. Help me to see others the way You do.