The jigsaw puzzle of good works

The fit will never be perfect. But the imperfections of the fit are not the same as the imperfections in the pieces.

The pieces are not the works. The pieces are people doing and receiving good works. Together they make one puzzle.

The imperfect meshing of the pieces delivers us from the tyranny of theory. Theory demands perfection. And I think I've loved the peaceable kingdom of theory too much.

Practice sets aside the theory, and simply accepts the bumps and bruises of imperfection. It goes with the territory.

My suspicion is this: a theoretically balanced life needs to be disrupted by the bruises that come with practice. In that way it will be a more balanced life.

What results is a kind of unframed beauty.

This drawing came to me as I signed up to be a volunteer at the Union Gospel Mission.

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James 2.20-22 Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works ...