Jesus, Being God Himself, Revealed God Fully

As I was pondering today’s passage, I thought it might be helpful to “visit” with Anne A. Graham, noted Dissectologist. 

DL: Anne, some of our readers may not know what a Dissectologist is. Can you explain your field of specialty?

Anne A. Graham: Absolutely. A Dissectologist is someone who is passionate about puzzles of all kinds, especially jigsaw puzzles. It all started in 1760 when John Spilsbury, a mapmaker, cut a world map into pieces to help teach his son geography. This was the 1^st known jigsaw puzzle. Of course, today, Dissectology includes all kinds of puzzles like Sudoku, Crosswords, WordSearches, Tangrams, & even Escape Rooms. I like almost all puzzles, but I draw the line at Dot-to-Dot puzzles.

DL: What is the appeal of puzzles?

Anne A. Graham: They are a fun way to stimulate the mind, to decompress & to provide serenity on a stressful day. After you put together the outer border of a puzzle, there’s nothing like finding your inner piece. Of course you can get a bit too relaxed. One time I fell asleep face down on the puzzle. With the shape of the puzzle pieces indented in my cheeks, my husband said I had a very puzzled look on my face. 
One of my favorite ways to challenge myself is to do a puzzle without ever looking at the box lid. 

DL: Yikes. How would you do this?

Anne A. Graham: You sort the pieces by edges, colors, & shapes. So, let’s say I’m working on The Resurrection Window jigsaw puzzle. I’d probably start sorting the pieces into 3 categories:
–Edge Pieces
–Yellow leaf pieces in The Tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil on the left-hand side of the puzzle
–Green leaf pieces in The Tree of Life on the right-hand side of the puzzle

DL: That strategy makes sense. However, you could spend hours working on the puzzle & never realize that the true focal point of The Resurrection Window was actually Jesus. I would submit that this could be relatable to our faithwalk. As we try to develop our picture of God, we can get sidetracked by certain Biblical phrases or give too much weight to particular Biblical stories or even listen to what other people say about God that would create a distorted picture of God.

Several years ago Pastor James Bryan Smith spoke at a Resurrection Men’s retreat & contended that one of the most important spiritual tasks we have to do is to develop a picture of God. This image will transform our faithwalk & impact our daily life. For example, if we view God as the stern lifeguard constantly blowing His whistle each time we speed-walk to the diving board, it could impact the openness of our prayer life, our ability to forgive others & ourselves, & our worldview would be somewhat grim. On the other hand, if we view God as the friendly lifeguard who is constantly looking out for our safety & well-being, who is always ready to apply extra sunscreen to that hard-to-reach spot in the middle of the back, & who is eagerly ready to jump in the pool to come alongside of us after a scary jump from the high dive, then our prayer life will become a nice break in the day, we’ll actually find peace in forgiving others, & we will even begin to see the world as a place of joyful possibilities.

Realizing the consequences of developing the most accurate picture of God possible, why not go ahead & “look at the box lid” & discover God through the life, words, miracles, & actions of Jesus? 

Anne A. Graham: That is a great point. We could even consider the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, & John as the “4 corners” of our puzzle to help us get started on developing the best possible picture of God.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to prepare for my Speed Puzzling Convention where we compete against each other to see who can finish a puzzle first.

DL: Thanks for visiting. That sounds like fun. A puzzle convention is probably the only time you can politely exchange cross words with your opponents.

Anne A. Graham: Um….

Here is a picture of The Resurrection Window puzzle as a guide: