It's Monday again here on Things Unseen. I'm sure you've seen those puzzle books that

often seem to be printed on the cheapest quality paper, sometimes you'll see children

or perhaps even older adults with them on usually long haul flights or long train journeys.

Sometimes I join the dots puzzle and you try and guess the person or object as you join

up the dots that seem to be randomly placed there on the page. I sometimes think life's

like that, doesn't it? Full of apparently isolated dots. But if you're a Christian, you

know that they're not accidental or random. And you know that the dots will eventually

all make sense, even if it's not clear what that final picture is going to be. But you

begin to trace the line from one dot to another.

In some ways, passages of Scripture can be like those dots. For one way we sometimes

are helped to catch a glimpse of God's plan, pattern in our lives, is to think of the

specific verses or passages in Scripture that have made a special impression on us, to

see them as divinely placed dots, if you will, and to watch them being joined up to give

shape to your life. I know that for myself, looking back, I think I can see how God has,

if you will, joined up the dots to give my own life shape. So I thought this week I'd

reflect on some of those passages, not because there's anything special about my own experience,

partly because I'm thinking of great Bible passages, and also because I think this may be a way

of encouraging you to do the same, to trace the Lord's ways with you. Both Scripture and the old

masters of the spiritual life tell us that it's important to remember God's ways with us,

because when we remember his providential dealings with us, that helps us praise him for his

watchcare over our lives, and it also helps us to trust him when we're not exactly sure what he

is doing with us. It helps us to sing the Lord has brought me safe thus far, and he will bring me home.

...