“Walking by faith is a lot like connect-the-dots pictures,” observed my Sunday school teacher decades ago. It’s a perceptive insight I often recall and enjoy sharing.
Remember connect-the-dots? A page is scattered with dots that hide an image which will emerge as you begin at dot number one, draw a line to dot number two, and continue drawing lines to the last numbered dot on the page.
Picture a youngster leaning over a paper, carefully connecting dot to dot, by faith searching for a good end – a finished picture. Look, an elephant! Or an ice cream cone!
To highlight his analogy, my teacher cited the heart of these familiar words from the prophet Jeremiah (emphasis added).
“For I know the plans that I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you …” (Jeremiah 29:11-14, NASB1995).
Of course, Jeremiah’s message at the time was God’s reassurance that He would restore His people to a right relationship with Him and deliver them from their long captivity.
According to scriptural and historical accounts, they had been exiled to Babylonia in waves over a period of seventy years (Jeremiah 25:11). Still, they refused to connect the dots, as applied to their faith in God’s design for them.
Their experience offers an apt lesson for Christians today. Author Retha Groenewald recalls how the Old Testament reveals how God repeatedly warned His people that their frequent obedience would lead to disaster, e.g. the Babylonian captivity. In 5 Prophets Warned Israel Regarding Exile, Groenewald writes:
"The prophets of God had seen and warned the rulers of Judah of the day when the Babylonian army would destroy the temple and Jerusalem, and take the people of Judah captive. Their rulers did not listen and continued with their lives of idolatry, immorality and injustice toward the poor."
Their sins poisoned their walk with God because they quit connecting the dots. Likewise, our repeated disobedience and disregard for God’s plan for our walk with Him will lead only to despair, failure, fear, or even separation from Him.
Seasoned and long-term Christians must observe this essential truth as taught again and again in God’s Word. A fruitful walk with Jesus depends on faithful obedience to His teachings.
Sometimes, with life’s challenges, we allow our faith to wane. Maybe it’s the loss of a home in a hurricane, an untimely family death, a spouse’s infidelity, drug or alcohol addiction, the unexpected loss of a job, or a terminal illness. Yet, even then, when frustrated because we cannot see the resolution of our current challenges, we must be faithful. Take the next step. Connect the dots.
Yes, life isn’t always easy. But think back to the child faithfully drawing one line at a time, not seeing the future result of his commitment. Each line he draws proves his faith: Something good is coming. So he continues, line by line, connecting the dots until the picture is completed.
It should be so for all of us who say we follow Him. Day by day, step by step, even though we cannot yet see the future of our faith, the completed picture. But we can trust in a God who is faithful. And we can be confident our dots will emerge as a masterpiece of God’s own design.
