Connect the Dots
By Kelly Crull
When I was a kid, at the grocery store I used to beg my mom for puzzle books. I would sit in the cart with my feet dangling, and she would unsnap her purse and pull out one of these flimsy cardboard books filled with spelling games, word finds, cross-word puzzles, and connect the dots. I liked the connect the dots best because I never knew what I was drawing at first. After connecting a few dots with a pencil, I would hold the book out and look at the picture, trying to guess if it was a duck or a castle or a fireman. Sometimes I would know right away, but other times I would have to wait until all the dots were connected to find out what I was drawing.
I think the Apostle Paul sometimes uses a connect-the-dots approach in his letters to the church. When he's writing about something so profound and so mysterious that it's borderline uncomprehensible, he does what anyone would do, he tells us what he knows. He doesn't even attempt to tell us everything. He just gives us some of the details, some of the dots, so to speak, and hopes that we will see the whole picture.
Paul's familiar passage on love in 1 Corinthians 13 is a fine example of connecting the dots. Each of Paul's statements is another black point on the page. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love does not envy. Love does not boast. Etc. Etc. God's asking Paul to describe one of the greatest mysteries of human life in human terms, and Paul can't give us the whole picture, so he gives us a page full of dots.
As a kid my goal in a connect the dots was not drawing the lines perfectly between dots. My goal was to see the whole picture. But in order to see the picture, I had to connect the dots. In 1 Corinthians 13, God is challenging us to look beyond Paul's statements as some sort of love thermometer. Reading the passage that way, we would only be capable of realizing that we don't measure up, that we're all at absolute zero. God does want us to know that we're cold without Him, but even more importantly, He wants us to see the bigger picture. He wants us to see the glimpse of true love that He has created with Paul's words. He wants us to know that love is something so profoundly wonderful that all we can do is hope for training wheels.
I'm thankful the best Paul can do is give us dots because that means God's gift of love is beyond Paul. It's beyond all human comprehension. And in spite of our limitations, God loves us, and we love each other. Even without understanding completely, we can still give and receive love.