Now we go to our pile of puzzle pieces to look for those with a straight edges. They will connect the corners and frame the puzzle.

The pieces which will connect together to frame our Christmas puzzle is the love of God.  

When it comes to love, we often imagine that God’s love is like ours, just bigger and better. However, human love is too often the product of emotion, outward appearance or circumstances. It is short-sighted and prone to be distracted by shiny objects. It grows best in the soil of desired outcomes and when life doesn’t go according to its expectations (in small things and large), something at its core registers, “not good.”

The love of God isn’t just bigger and better; it is of a different substance. It is Love that left the perfection of Love in order to share itself with those who would hate and reject it. It is a love that is both energized by and reflective of God’s nature. It is :

Holy love Sovereign love Eternal love Infinitely wise love

One verse in Scripture illustrates this kind of love really well: This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 John 4:10).

God’s love for us in Christ wasn’t just a matter of timing: He didn’t just get there first as far as the loving went. Before we knew we needed it, God’s love, His holy, sovereign, eternal and infinitely wise love was at work in our life and in our world.

As we begin to fill in our Christmas puzzle, we will build from that framework: The solid foundation of God’s love that flows unceasingly out of God’s nature.

The birth of Jesus Christ was not an event. It was the culmination of that eternal, holy, sovereign, infinitely wise love in time and space.

Nancy Shirah