I tell the women at our classes and events that the answer to every question is “Jee-sus.” Said with a respectful Southern drawl and hyper-pronounced syllables.

But it really is true. The question is, do we see and hear Him in all the places He shows up and speaks up?

For example, Salem got a hand made puzzle at church and she wanted me to see if I could do it. “It’s hard, Mom,” she warned.

A few days later, I was cleaning up the house and the envelope on her desk caught my eye. I felt a tug to sit down and do it. Being somewhat of a puzzle queen, I did what I always do with puzzles. I sorted everything out, turned the pieces face up and looked for the edges. It was clearly a box of candy. This is will be a piece of cake, er, make that candy, I thought.

First, I lined up the pieces that had the weight and kilos printed on them. Then I noticed there was a rough edge where it had been torn, so I grouped those knowing that they had to form one side of the box.

But a curious thing happened. It DID get hard. It didn’t make sense. There were only three colors on the pieces: blue, red, white. The product was clearly a Nestle’s Crunch item. There were less than 20 total pieces. How hard could it be?

Here is the “Jee-sus” part.

I had to stopping trying to make the puzzle work according to what I thought I saw. I knew the word had to spell CRUNCH. But the pieces just didn’t fit. No effort on my part made them fit. I had to stop looking at the word Crunch and look at each piece, how each was shaped, where there were color alignments. The curve of the U was actually the H turned slightly. And those ruffled edges I was so confident of? They were actually split in two sections.

I do Jesus like that. I approach His word, my relationship with Him, like I already know what it says and I know what He will say. I already know how to do it. I know a pattern, I have the system down. I already know…

But when I step out of my paradigms and boxes, I find I look at each piece with intention, curiosity and (dare I say it?) wonder. When I stop focusing on what I know, I find out what I missed, the angle of that piece, the curve of that letter is different… When I allow my heart and spirit to discover and wonder and relish the time looking at God and all that He is, I find a much much bigger picture that I thought existed.

And then I find I don’t know quite as much as I thought I did. Which is a good thing.