Put the Man Together First

While at church a couple weeks ago, our pastor told a story that he'd heard many years earlier that he has used to guide his life ever since. The story goes like this: 

There was a father who was very important at his place of work, and he often took hours of work home with him to do over the weekend. One Saturday morning, like most other Saturday mornings, he locked himself in his office to get his "all important" work done.  

Pretty soon, he heard a knock at the door, and when he opened it he saw his 6 year old son standing there with a baseball in one hand and his mitt in the other saying, "Dad, are you ready to go play catch? Remember you promised?" 

The father had forgotten he had made this promise to his young son, but he said simply, "Yes, of course. We will play as soon as I am done working. Come back later, and I promise we will go out and play catch."  

So his son went away, but about 10 minutes later there was another knock on the door. When the father opened it, he saw his son. "Is it later yet, Daddy?" 

"No," said the father. "You didn't give me enough time. Come back in a long while, and then I promise we will play catch." 

So the young boy went away again, but about 30 minutes later there was another knock at the door. "That was a long time, Daddy. Are you done now?" 

The father was getting frustrated, so he explained to his son that he had to wait until he couldn't wait any longer and then wait some more. Then it would be time to go outside to play catch. 

So, the boy went away for over an hour before coming back and knocking on the office door.  "That was a really long time, Daddy. Is it later now?" 

So the father had an idea.  He went to the shelf and pulled out a large world map.  He tore it into many very small pieces and then handed it to his son along with a roll of tape. "Here, son. I made you a puzzle. Put this world map together with the tape. I promise when you are done with that, I will be finished with my work, and we will go out to play together." He felt very smart and sat down to focus on the work at hand. 

The father couldn't believe it when 1-1/2 hours later there was a small knock at the door. When he opened it, his small son stood proudly displaying a heavy, but accurate, world map. "Son, did your mother help you with this?" 

"Yes," the little boy said. 

But still, the father didn't understand how they could have put the map together so quickly. "How did you know how to do that?" he asked his son. 

"Well," the boy said, "I realized that on the other side was a picture of a man with long hair wearing a white robe. I just realized that if I put that Man together, the whole world fell into place." 

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Just remember, if you make sure Jesus is intact in your life, everything else in your world will fall into place.