Jigsaws...

One word has cropped up like 5 times between my quiet times and church these past 2 days: Sovereign. The first time it came up I like didn't really think much about it and if I'm being honest I didn't really take time to think what it meant. It just seemed like on of those 'church words' that we so often use but don't really think about.

In the dictionary Sovereign is defined as  "being above all others in character, importance, excellence, etc." 

You see the more I thought about this adjective that was being used to describe God and when I looked up this definition the more I realised what I was trying to be told. God is above all things, the enemy, the good things, the bad things, the times when we feel alone, the times when we have everyone we love around us. He has it all in his hands and he is in control!

To be honest, at this precise moment I am feeling pretty good about life. I have friends all around me, I have 2 conditional offers for Uni, I have an interview for my dream course, I have a loving family and life is good in general. So when this kept coming up I was kinda like this doesn't really apply to me at the minute because I know God is in the good in my life.  

However, I know from previous experiences that life isn't always good. In fact life can be pretty horrible at times. If you had come to me like 2 months ago I would have told you that life was pretty crap and I felt really down. Looking back now though I can see that God was in that time even though I couldn't feel him. He was using it to strengthen my faith in him and teaching me that I can't go through life by myself, I need him. At the time, I didn't really appreciate it, but now I look back and I am thankful that God was above that bad time and he has now brought me through. (Check out James 1:2-4)

Then today in church my minister started talking about God's sovereignty. When he brought up the point, I was like this is weird because I had just looked into it last night!! And he used this image that really helped me out to explain God's sovereignty and I'm going to share it with you. 

If I was to ask you what is the most important piece of a jigsaw what would you say? The corners? The straight edges? The last piece? I will now take this moment to tell you that in fact none of these are the most important piece. The most important piece of the jigsaw is the lid. You see without the lid we wouldn't know what we were trying to build as we wouldn't have the overall picture and some of the pieces wouldn't make much sense to us. 

In life, God holds the lid to our jigsaw. He sees the overall picture of our life. He is above all the pieces that will build our life. We only get to see some of the pieces and at the time we receive some of these pieces we might not be able to make much sense of them. It's in these times that we need to go to God and put our full faith in him. He knows what our life will hold (Jeremiah 29:11; Psalm 33:11; Psalm 16:11) and he is ahead of us. He has promised to be with us. (Deuteronomy 31:5-6; Joshua 1:9; Matthew 28:20) 

So when life takes a turn for the worst we need to remember that God is sovereign. He will not let you down. 

You see I do not know what my life holds. These next few months may be hard. I might totally muck up this interview that I have for my dream course and I may get rejected from the course. If this happens, though I will be totally gutted I know God has a bigger and better plan for me. I may fail my A-Levels and not meet the entry requirements I need for Uni. Again if this happens I will be devastated, but God is bigger than the grades I achieve. There are so many uncertainties in life. But I know this, God has the lid of my jigsaw and he knows what is going to come my way. So I am going to trust him and let him led me. I'm not saying it's going to be easy but I'm walking with the One who is sovereign over everything. And that makes me feel safe!

So, when this word 'sovereign' kept coming up I didn't really know why. Now I see that through the good and the bad God is in it and is above it. When my life takes a turn for the worst, I hope and pray I will remember this lesson that God has been teaching me over the past few days. And I hope that in sharing this it has encouraged you!!

Wrote with love,
Jemma.