CONNECTING THE DOTS

At around 5 years of age, my mother bought me a “Connect The Dots” book thinking it would help me learn to count and recognize the numbers. She was right but it also began my love affair with puzzles. I love crossword puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, mystery puzzles and connecting the dot puzzles. Although they can be a challenge, there is always an end in which the true picture is revealed, all the words fit just right, or the real villains are uncovered. There is nothing more frustrating than realizing a piece of the puzzle is missing or the mystery has never been solved; I must have closure! How disappointing it would be to open your new “Connect the Dot” book to find that there were just a bunch of dots on the page with no numbers or even worse to have a dot at the top with the number 1 and a dot at the bottom with the number 20. You would not know where to start or finish with the first page and the second page would give you a beginning but no steps in between to get you to the ending point. You need direction from the puzzle's creator to be able to follow the numbers to completion.

Sometimes it seems as if life is a misprinted version of “Connect the Dots.” We all have a beginning point, hopefully we have a vision of what we want the end product to be, but it is the in between dots that seem to be missing. You may feel that you are just not in tune with God; be assured, you are not alone. Joseph was given dreams at a very young age, dot #1. He dreamed that someday the sun, moon and stars would bow down to him, dot #15. Now where were dots # 2, through #14? Although he may not have recognized it at the time, God was supplying and connecting the dots all along the way. Dot #2, he told his brothers and father his dream, Dot #3, his brothers throw him in a pit, Dot #4, Joseph is sold to the Ishmaelites, Dot #5, Joseph was sold to Potipher, Dot #6, Potpher’s wife tells lies on Joseph, and Dot #7, Joseph is thrown in prison. At this point, Joseph must have felt like there were no more dots on the page, perhaps the dreams were just fantasies and #7 was the ending dot, but God had some more connecting ahead. Dot #8, God gives Joseph favor with the prison warden, Dot #9, involves a butler and a baker. Then Genesis 40:23 tells us that the butler forgot Joseph; God isn’t there just a few more dots to be connected? God continued, Dot #10, Pharaoh has a dream and the butler remembers Joseph, Dot #11, Joseph is elevated to second in command in Egypt, Dot #12, there is a famine in the land of Joseph’s father, Dot #13, Joseph’s brothers come to buy food, Dot #14, Joseph’s brothers bow down, Dot #15, Joseph is reunited with his father; and the picture is complete.

Philippians 1:6 promises, “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.” God is faithful! Although at times it may seem that there are a few dots missing or they are all jumbled, His plan for your life is not incomplete or without direction. If God has given you a dream with the beginning and ending dots, allow him to slowly fill in the “in between” one dot at a time. When you look back at the whole picture, you will be able to see every dot along the way and exactly how God connected them to accomplish His perfect will in your life.