Some Assembly Required

When life looks like a pile of parts

I have decided there are three words that can strike fear into the heart of any reasonably confident adult: “Some assembly required.”

Those words always look so innocent on the box. You buy a bookshelf, a desk, a grill, or some other item, and the picture on the front looks really cool. There it is—completely assembled, perfectly level, sitting in a spotless room where apparently nobody actually lives.

You think, I can do that. Then you open the box. There are 147 pieces of wood, 63 thousand screws, 140 mysterious plastic things, one tiny Allen wrench, and an instruction booklet apparently written by someone who has never personally assembled anything in their life.

And somehow there is always one extra screw. That's when the questions begin. Where was this supposed to go? Is this important? Will the whole thing collapse if I ignore it? Can I just put a plant in front of the crooked part?

And my personal favorite: “Why can’t I just buy one that was already put together?”

Sometimes I think we approach God the same way. We want Him to hand us the finished product. “Lord, here's what I would like my life to look like, and if You could have all of that assembled by Friday, that would be wonderful.”

Instead, God hands us a box of pieces. A little opportunity here. A closed door there. A season of waiting. A relationship we don't understand. A prayer that hasn't been answered yet. A disappointment we certainly didn't order. And maybe even a few pieces that make absolutely no sense.

We spread them all across the floor of our lives, stare at them, and say,

“God, what in the world are You building?”

The problem is that we can only see the pieces. God sees the finished product. Paul wrote in Philippians 1:6: “He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” 

God finishes what He starts. That's important to remember because sometimes life looks less like a masterpiece and more like the contents of an IKEA box dumped across the living room floor. Nothing seems connected. Nothing seems finished. And you're pretty sure something important is missing. But here's what I'm learning: Unfinished doesn't mean abandoned.

The answer may simply be: He's still building.

Romans 8:28 tells us that God works all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. We love the “good” part. We aren't nearly as excited about the “all things together” part. Because that means God sometimes uses pieces we would have thrown away. God has an incredible ability to take pieces that look completely useless to us and fit them into something beautiful.

Joseph probably didn't understand the pit. He probably didn't understand slavery. He certainly didn't understand prison. Those pieces didn't look like they belonged in the story God had shown him. But eventually the pieces came together. The pit led somewhere. The prison led somewhere. The waiting led somewhere. And years later Joseph could look back and realize:

God had been building something the entire time.

Don’t judge God's work while He's still assembling it. Stop looking at chapter six and wondering why the story doesn't make sense yet. You're staring at one piece and assuming it's the whole picture. But God isn't finished.

Every mistake, every painful thing and every difficult season did not necessarily come from God, but none of those things are beyond His ability to redeem.

Everything is part of your story. Even the “This makes absolutely no sense,” and one day you will say “Now I see what God was doing.”

Faith isn't always seeing the finished product. Sometimes faith is sitting in the middle of the floor surrounded by pieces and saying: “I don't understand this…but I trust the Builder.”

So if your life feels a little disassembled right now, don't panic. If you have pieces you don't understand, don't throw them away.  And if you happen to find an extra screw… Well, I can't help you there. Put it in the junk drawer with the other seventeen. But when it comes to your life, remember this: God knows what He's building.

The Builder sees the completed work. So keep trusting. Keep praying. Keep following. Keep handing Him the pieces.

Just because your life looks like a pile of parts doesn't mean the Builder doesn't know what He's making.

Sometimes the box simply says:

Some Assembly Required.