When the Puzzle Pieces Don't Fit

I may or may not have admitted my obsession with puzzles before on this blog, but because it's such an all-consuming occupation, I'll mention it here again. Once I begin a puzzle, I find it really difficult to stop. It's why 1,000-piece puzzles are such an enigma to me: I love that there are so many pieces, because there are a thousand pieces worth of enjoyment! I hate that there are so many pieces, because I can't fit them all together in one sitting!

What's a girl to do?

A few years back, I put together a puzzle of Times Square in New York City. I had an intense love-hate relationship with that puzzle for the reasons listed above, because it was 5,500 pieces, and it took me at least a week to complete. The pieces were tiny and so similar in shape that it felt nearly impossible to find the exact match needed.

When I came down to the final pieces, I discovered a huge swath along the bottom of the puzzle had to be redone, because two of the pieces fit almost perfectly into places they weren't supposed to go. The tiny imperfections were nearly invisible, and I didn't find out the mistake until I had three pieces left that didn't fit anywhere, and I pored over the puzzle, wondering what I had done wrong.

We've come to the warning of the last plague in Exodus 11. Moses is standing before an angry Pharaoh who has just told him at the end of chapter 10, "Get out of my sight! Make sure you do not appear before me again! The day you see my face, you will die."

"'Just as you say,' Moses replied, 'I will never appear before you again.'"

Turns out he does appear before Pharaoh one last time (we'll get there in the next chapter) -- I think as a way of reminding Pharaoh one last time that what he commands does not supersede what God commands. This is a hard lesson for Pharaoh -- and one that ruins his country before he learns it.

Moses turns to go. As he does the Lord tells him what the next plague will be, and Moses turns back to Pharaoh. I don't know what Moses looked like. I don't know if he asks Aaron to say the words, or if he finally drums up the gumption to do it himself this time. But I imagine he's had enough. He's gone through nine rounds of this back-and-forth. He's angry, and I bet you can see it. 

I remember pushing my mom's buttons as a kid, testing, testing... until she'd had enough. She'd reach this vocal pitch that wasn't loud but was hard as nails, and her jawline could have bent steel. And I would know -- no more testing Mom. The next thing that happens will be very, very bad.

I think Moses reaches this point. It's the point in the movie where Pharaoh's pointing at the door and Moses turns, and Pharaoh's arm trembles beneath the fire in Moses' gaze. 

Moses says: "This is what the Lord says, 'About midnight I will go throughout Egypt. Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne to the firstborn son of the slave girl, who is at her hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle as well. There will be loud wailing throughout Egypt -- worse than there has ever been or ever will be again. But among the Israelites not a dog will bark at any man or animal. Then you will know that the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel. All these officials of yours will come to me, bowing down before me and saying, 'Go, you and all the people who follow you!' After that I will leave.' Then Moses, hot with anger, left Pharaoh" (Exodus 11:4-8).

All the plagues up until now have originated outside the home: The blood, the frogs, the gnats, the flies, the livestock sickness, the boils, the hail, the locusts, the darkness (possibly a sandstorm that makes it impossible to see). This is the first plague that will begin inside the home, and there's no way to bar the door and keep it out. There's no place to hide. There's no running away from this plague, no escape. 

This is the angel of death, and as I said in my post Pride is a Harsh Taskmaster a few days ago, this plague brings with it the first completely miraculous, unexplainable by natural phenomena results of the ten plagues of Egypt. God brought the first nine plagues, each of them possibly an intensification of natural processes. This one is simply "The End." The final page of the book. God is finished. He's had enough. Some steel is getting ready to be bent.

Up until this point, Pharaoh thinks he's played a pretty good game. He thinks he's put all the puzzle pieces into the places they need to go to complete the picture he wants to make. His beautiful nation, his slave game.  

But he's wrong. There are pieces that don't fit. Israel isn't supposed to be a slave nation in Egypt. It's not where God wants them. They need to be taken out, and the puzzle needs to be redone. Some pieces need to be shifted around to return the puzzle to the correct order. 

You know, it almost works. A quick glance shows a successful kingdom, a world power. From a distance, you might think the picture is complete. A close-up inspection, though, will show the gaps between the pieces. You'll see where the edges rub wrong.

Pharaoh is blind to it. He's blind to the simple fix: taking out a few pieces and putting them in the correct place. So God disrupts his puzzle. He obliterates it with this final plague -- all of Pharaoh's inheritance, power, etc. is wrapped up in his firstborn. The inheritor. The progeny. 

God takes away Pharaoh's future, both physically and symbolically in this act. There is nothing he can do to fight back. God is having the final word, and it's going to hurt just a bit.

As I was waiting on the Lord, I saw a picture of a puzzle on a table. It was a large one with lots of pieces, and as I described above, all the pieces were so similar in size and shape that many of them almost fit... but not quite. A lot of people stood around the table, high-fiving each other. They'd just finished it, and they congratulated themselves on their accomplishment. But I could see the pieces didn't fit, and the picture was skewed. 

While I was trying to convince the people that there were pieces out of place, a stake -- one of those metal, ribbed stakes you sometimes see at construction sites -- erupted through the puzzle from underneath it, and puzzle pieces scattered everywhere. 

I've seen those stakes before: when I was a kid, I was playing on a terrace where four of those things were sticking up about waist level in the shape of a square. Some friends dared me to try to squeeze between them, and when I did, the two in front scraped open a long gash across my stomach. It wasn't enough for a hospital visit, but it was enough to make me cry and for my mom to grab the antiseptic bottle of iodine, which made me shriek in pain for a bit. 

The stakes weren't a pleasant experience. They were rough, they were rusty, and I sure wish I had never encountered them, because what they did wasn't pretty and was quite painful.

I asked the Lord what this same stake coming out of the puzzle meant. And I heard this -- not the exact words, but the gist: "Just when you think you've got it together, you don't. The breaking apart of your perceptions is going to hurt, but it's necessary so that My plan can move forward."

Maybe God will speak to a single situation, but it's been my experience that He more often -- to use an old proverb -- kills two birds with one stone (sorry, poor birds). :) He speaks on multiple levels. 

So I take this message personally. God is working in my heart this morning, working on my perceptions, working on what I think is right and refining me. But I think He's also interested in working on you, too. And the larger church. And the nation. And the world. He's so much bigger, His knowledge, wisdom, experience, holiness -- is so much more vast than anything we can comprehend. 

He displays His all-surpassing power to Pharaoh. He displays His all-surpassing power to us. He has in the past. He will again. 

Let's make sure we're not so entrenched in our own perspectives... that we sacrifice our firstborn hopes on the altar of selfish blind, tunnel-vision pride.

Like Pharaoh does.