Trying to Make Sense of Life (Using Legos!)

I love word pictures!

Currently in Sunday school we are studying the difficult-to-understand book of Ecclesiastes. To help us, the teacher did something odd. He gave us each a different Lego kit to assemble, but without instructions or a picture of what it was.

There were many pieces of various sizes, shapes, and colors. As I closely examined my pieces, I noticed 4 wheels. So I knew it was some type of vehicle. Next, I saw the word police written on one of the pieces, and then a siren. I concluded mine must be a police car.

With this knowledge, I was then able to assemble the base with the 4 wheels. With a bit more investigation, I was able to connect a few more pieces, but that’s as far as I got. It was impossible so I gave up.

What’s the point?

Building a Lego set without instructions is like us trying to make sense of life without God!

King Solomon found that everything was meaningless under the sun (=without God). Work, riches, knowledge, pleasure—everything was empty and gave no satisfaction.

“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” (Eccl 1:2)

However, God doesn’t want us to flounder through life, consumed with all its hardships—dissatisfied, disheartened and discouraged. He wants us to know and enjoy Him. We were created for that very purpose (Rev 4:11)

God uses many things to reveal this truth to us.

Using our Lego analogy…

The 4 tires, siren, and word police were evidence of a police car—like creation is evidence of God’s existence.

The gathering of more clues which enabled me to assemble a few more pieces equates to life’s circumstances and experiences. But it still doesn’t make sense. And eventually we may even give up on life.

Now imagine someone coming along telling us that there is a way to put all the pieces together! But they say there’s only one way, and we have to go to the one who made the way and we have to follow his way if we want to build our Lego set the right way.

If we agree, we enter into a wonderful relationship with the owner and maker of our Lego kit.

Then little by little, if we follow the owner’s instructions, we begin to see the vehicle taking shape.

Sometimes we get flustered that a piece we want doesn’t go in next or in the order we want. Sometimes we insist that a certain piece (=suffering) doesn’t belong to our kit at all! If we’re not careful, we might even resent the owner for it.

But He has the big picture and is in charge.

If and when we finally concede and continue building our Lego set his way, we find it wasn’t so bad after all and even worth it!

God has given us the way to make sense of our Lego set (our life), given to us through His Son at a huge price. Once we accept His way, He gives us the Bible—His instruction manual. But they are complicated. We need to carefully study it and ask for His assistance in understanding and carrying out those instructions.

We must concede to His timing and placement of each piece, otherwise we make a mess of things. We might even wind up breaking something if we try forcing a piece where it doesn’t belong.

But along the way, if we don’t give up, we’ll begin to see it making sense. We’ll begin to see the big picture, the end result of a beautifully constructed Lego set. And even though there are still a lot of pieces in limbo; even though we don’t know how it all fits together now, we can rest and know that God, the Owner and Maker, knows where they fit.

If we cooperate and work with Him, we’ll come to appreciate our Owner’s qualities—His kindness, patience, wisdom and love. We’ll actually come to enjoy building our Lego set together with Him and each other, because we have learned to trust the Owner of all Lego sets. Eventually we will also see that life was really all about the Owner and not about us!

Helpful Resources
When God Doesn’t Seem to Make Sense—Do These 5 Things
What to Do When the Bible Seems Confusing
Why We Need a DEEPER Understanding of God’s Word

Trust God MORE: The Development of Belief, Faith and Trust

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