Square Peg In A Round Hole

We still have a country bench in our family room that is really a toy chest.
In that toy chest are some favorite toys from my children’s younger years.
The toys are there for anyone who visits with children of their own.
Seeing the toys played with again and again delights me.

One toy in particular was always difficult to master.
Difficult to master when they were young, but much easier when they got older.
It is a ball with cut out geometric shapes all around it.
Inside the ball are pieces that fit into each hole.

This toy was not an easy task for young hands and young minds.
As they got older, they became more adept at completing this puzzle.
Finishing it was not enough, as they got older.
They would race against time and see who could complete it the fastest.

It seemed that the first shape mastered was the circle.
No points or edges, it easily fit into its corresponding hole.
Squares and triangles followed.
The multi-sided figures presented a problem.

Too many points.
Too many edges.
Too challenging to line them up just right.
Only one way for the shape to fit into the hole.

Even when they were old enough to complete the puzzle, I was still needed.
The ball had to be pulled apart to get all the pieces out in order to begin again.
Until they were able to do that themselves, I was always nearby to open it for them.
One day, out of nowhere, they were able to do the entire puzzle themselves.

When you watch a child try to master that puzzle, you learn many life lessons.
How often the child tries to put a square shape into a round hole.
It just doesn’t work.
The amount of energy expended to attempt the impossible, leads to great frustration.

It is futile to explain geometry to a small child.
Sides and angles mean nothing to developing brains.
Young brains that are not mature enough to understand, yet.
Children learn by doing at this stage; concepts will come later.

We smile at the thought of a young child trying to force shapes where they don’t belong.
We smile, but we struggle with the same thing.

Over this Christmas and New Year holiday, many friends experienced death of a loved one.
Death is always difficult to deal with, but death over the holidays seems more unbearable.
Dealing with death, trying to make sense of the loss is often like the geometric puzzle.
In our grief, we try endlessly to fit square pegs into round holes.

They just don’t fit!

Solving the theodicy question is like solving the geometric puzzle.
If God is good, why is there suffering?
It is the question that trips up even the most seasoned believer.
There is seemingly no explanation that will satisfy.

God could fix this in an instant…why didn’t He?
Square peg into round hole.
God says He answers prayers…why not mine?
Triangle piece into square hole.

All the while, in our struggling, God is nearby.
God has the power and ability to open the geometric puzzle and dump out all the pieces.
There we see the pieces of our grief on the floor.
Disjointed. Disconnected. Seemingly random.

We look up and see His kind eyes smiling down at us.
We know that HE is the only one with the answer.
We know that He is not going to fix the puzzle for us, but He is near, close, involved.
We find comfort in the fact that there is ONE who can solve the puzzle.

ONE who knows the solution.
ONE who can put all the pieces back together perfectly.
THERE IS ONLY ONE!

Can you imagine if we asked God, why?
He actually invites us to do that, to talk to Him, to vent our feelings, to pound His chest.
We are much like the small child whose brain is not fully developed to comprehend.
We will never fully understand the complexities of God.

Why does God allow complexities in our life?
Why does God not fix it, solve it, remove it, change it?
Why does God not simplify the puzzle?
Why, God?

If we could figure out God, He would cease to be God.
If God smoothed the path before us, we would have no need of faith.
If God took away the difficulties, we would never grow.
If God stopped being God, that job would fall on us.

There would be millions of gods walking around with myriads of solutions.
Solutions that never solve anything but only lead to more unanswered questions.
Millions of gods that WE created in our own image.
All we ever bring to the table is our ego, which will never solve anything.

Trying to solve complex problems with no big picture.
Attempting to finish a puzzle with no plan.
Trying to be God when it is utterly impossible.
Failing to trust the God who sees, the God who hears, the God who knows.

C.S. Lewis wrote the book A Grief Observed after the death of his wife.
His stepson wrote an introduction in a later printing and explained the word “a”.
He observed that the word “a” was one individual’s perspective among countless others.
A grief observed among much grief.

Many scenarios.
ONE God.
One God who knows the reason for the suffering.
One God who is with us in the suffering.

One God who had to turn away as His own Son hung on a cross.
One God who vindicated the seemingly senseless death of Jesus with His resurrection.
ONE God that we can trust with our grief.
Not one God among many but rather, ONE God.

A circle only fits in a round hole.
The wisdom of God.

As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:9)

Though we do no understand, we can trust Him.
We have to.
He alone is the One that can solve the puzzle.