When 1/1000ths Is Missing

   Growing up, my family had an informal tradition every year between Christmas and New Years. Mom would pick up a puzzle— a big one; maybe a thousand pieces—and we’d all work on putting it together. There was another tradition that grew up at this same time: Dad would always hide a piece of the puzzle. The first few times this happened, the rest of the family would be looking around on the floor, under the table, in the couch, etc., trying to find the missing piece. And then, Dad, with a big grin, would produce it. We were always too relieved to be irritated. The missing piece would be fitted into place, and we’d all stand back and admire our handiwork. It got to the point, though, that when a piece turned up missing, we’d immediately demand that Dad hand it over, which he’d eventually do.

Before we figured out what Dad was up to, there was onething I never heard anyone say; no one ever suggested that just because 1/1000th of the puzzle was missing, we trash the 999/1000th that was present. Instead, we left the 999 assembled pieces on the table and waited for the missing piece to turn up, confident that in time, we’d find it. Thinking back on this helps me understand Habakkuk. When the prophet was confronted with a perplexity (namely, why God used bad men to punish better men), he didn’t give up his faith in God. He didn’t throw away the answers he had to 999 questions simply because he didn’t have the answer the 1000th question. He didn’t trash God just because there was a problem he couldn’t resolve. Instead, he waited for the answer to come. I will stand my watch . . . and watch to see what He will say to me. Some answers to life’s problems are not readily apparent. And when we encounter a situation that seems utterly incompatible with the love and goodness of God, it’s normal for us to ask the question “Why?”

A man told his friends about the wildlife he had seen in the woods—pheasants, rabbits, squirrels, woodpeckers—and his friends took off to see for themselves. But they returned disappointed, claiming there was no wildlife to be seen. “How is it that you saw these things, but we didn’t?” they asked. “Because,” the man replied with a chuckle, “I didn’t mind crouching for two hours in a wet ditch!” There are three ways God answers prayer: yes, no, and wait (have you ever told a child, “Wait and see”?) Waiting may be the toughest of the three answers; we like to know where we’ll end up before we start out. But when God answers our question “Why?” by telling us to wait, let’s do just that. Let’s not throw away the 999 pieces we have, but—as that old song says—trust that “farther along, we’ll know all about it; farther along we’ll understand why.”                   Kenny Chumbley