Matthew Costner

Every year at Christmas my mom and I put together a puzzle. It’s kind of like our own little tradition. We used to put together pictures of Santa Claus, but in the last several years we have been putting together photomosaic puzzles. It’s basically a picture that is made up of hundreds and thousands of smaller pictures.

Well, our first photomosaic puzzle was a picture of the Earth. It looked so cool on the box and at first was pretty addicting to try and figure out and put together. We figured out the land and got the corners all put together, but the ocean took us for forever. As a matter of fact, it took us so long that we had to stop looking at it for a month so that we could get refocused. No kidding! We even called over my aunt to help us, and with her help, the puzzle took us almost 4 months to put together.

Sometimes it seems like our life is kind of like that puzzle. Like my mom and I putting together the land and edges of the puzzle, I have done some cool things and had some major achievements come pretty quickly in my life. However, like the ocean part of the puzzle, there are things I have had to put down for a while in order to refocus.

My refocusing has come in the form of me having to humble myself. Have you ever had had to humble yourself or drop some of your pride? I feel like that is something I have to do a lot. I constantly have to say to myself, “Matthew get over yourself, life doesn’t revolve around you!”

After Jesus calmed the storm, He and the disciples pulled their little boat up to the shore in the region of the Gerasenes, only to meet a man that had to get over himself. As soon as Jesus got off the boat, a man ran down the hill only to fall on his knees in front of Him. We don’t know a lot about this guy, but he had been chained and left in a tomb. He had broken free from those chains, but he couldn’t seem to get his life in order.

To put it bluntly, this guy was possessed with an evil spirit that had a stronghold on his life that kept him from enjoying freedom. He could have stayed and played in the tombs and mountains for the rest of his life, but he knew he needed help. He was frustrated with life to the point that he cried and cut himself with rocks. I guess we could say that he had gotten the edges and land put together, but he couldn’t quite get the ocean put together. He needed to refocus. He needed Jesus.

What stronghold is keeping you from enjoying freedom? I may be young, but there is a saying I am finding more and more true as I get older, and that is that our secrets keep us sick and that the truth will set us free. In John 8:34-36, Jesus is talking to some people He met along the way who were questioning this freedom He brought, to which Jesus said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.”

Some of us have been staring at our ocean puzzle pieces for far too long, hoping we can finally get this puzzle put together. In reality, the pieces are running together and we need help. The problem is though that we can’t just call in our aunts to help us put our lives together. We have to call on Jesus. The One that sets us free from our strongholds, the One that can help put our puzzled lives together.