Some people love puzzles. It calms them as they search for just the right home for a small piece of paperboard, specially cut into interlocking pieces. There is something satisfying about that moment when your eyes lock onto a potential hole, your hands turn the homeless piece here and there and then suddenly, everything aligns and your previously lonely piece finally belongs perfectly.
 
If you’re like me, you might rely on the box-face to help you know what the puzzle is supposed to look like. Propped in front of me like a GPS map, I am constantly comparing colors, shapes, and sizes. I know what the end result is supposed to look like, and I work to conform my work to the vision that has been created for me.
 
Throughout our lives, we are constantly searching for how the various pieces of our selves fit into the great plan that has been set before us…the overall vision for how our life is supposed to look if we are to be successful…if we are to be happy. From the beginning, that picture that we are striving to recreate we often created from well-meaning parents, teachers, friends, and society itself. And from as early as we can remember, we have been working build that vision, piece-by-piece. But is the picture on the box really the image we want to conform to?
 
Sometimes, God hands us a new piece. It doesn’t usually take long to realize that this particular piece doesn’t seem to fit the picture of our lives that we have always held. The colors are more vibrant. The shapes are unknown to us. But the pictures captures our heart and takes our breath away. Could our lives really look like THIS?
 
It is at this point that many strive to take this God-given piece and fit it into the current constructs of their lives. “I can take this new piece and make it fit into my current picture.” But try as you might, the two visions will never merge. When God hands us a new vision for our lives, it often requires a mighty change.

It’s a simple piece of equipment that the exercise physiologist gave my husband to strengthen his core and support his overly-aged back. Knowing my core was a bit on the flabby side, I decided to join him on his journey. Using the pressure monitor, we performed various core strengthening exercises that used muscles we didn’t know we had.
The instructions stated that we were not to move on to the next exercise until we had mastered doing the previous one with precise form. In only a few days we mastered exercise #1 and moved on to #2. Ken quickly progressed through exercises #3 and returned for more instruction, while I continued to feel like a newborn giraffe learning to walk.
When he arrived home, he began showing me the next exercises in my future, when suddenly I found myself feeling angry, hopeless, and wanting to give up.  “What the heck is going on?” I thought to myself. “There’s nothing wrong. Why am I feeling this way?” Within just a few short minutes, I felt ready to throw in the towel. “I’ll never get any better. I’m doomed to be fat and out-of-shape. Why even bother?” Luckily for me, I am well-rehearsed in A-B-C-D journaling so I grabbed my handy notebook and scriptures, and went out to the living room to process my emotions.
It didn’t take long to recognize some of the old thought distortions that had taken over my mind…old beliefs that I thought I had banished for good. As I recognized and challenged those old beliefs once again, I could see how I was comparing myself and my progress to someone else. I was expecting years of inactivity and poor choices to be reversed in a matter of days…or at least weeks!
Clearly seeing my distorted beliefs, I was now free to replace them once again with the truth: I am not competing with anyone else. Consistency compounds. Enjoy the journey! Already, I was feeling at peace once again.
Then I opened my scriptures. Would you be surprised if I told you that there on the page was a direct message from my Heavenly Father? Would you be even more surprised if I told you that He sent that message through His servant, Isaiah?
“Awake, awake, put on thy strength…Put on thy beautiful garments…for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean. Shake thyself from the dust; arise, sit down…loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion.”
I was reminded once again that we are all daughters and sons of God. That makes us royalty. With the Lord, we are strong, even when we feel weak. Sometimes we find ourselves lying in the dust, chains about our neck, captive to the will of the flesh or the beliefs of the world.
Today is the perfect time to awake…to not allow unclean thoughts and beliefs to enter our minds any longer. It is time to stand up, shake off the dust, break the chains that have bound us, and take our place as rightful heirs to the blessings of God.
Because you’re human, I know that you have distorted beliefs about yourself. I know there are times when you believe you aren’t worth it…that you will never succeed…that all is hopeless. We all do. My hope for you is that you will learn how to recognize, challenge, and replace those thoughts. Awake! Don’t allow lies into your head any longer. Arise! Don’t wallow in the dust like captives to the beliefs of the world.  You are a child of God. Come. Arise, and take your proper place.