Oct 30, 2026 3 min read

My Christmas Gift Fail & Cautionary Tale

There's a puzzle store in our town but I can't figure out how it stays in business...

I'm not trying to brag, but I am considered to be a good gift giver by those closest to me. The truth is I really enjoy shopping for friends and family; in fact I keep an ongoing list of gift ideas that I update from time to time as new ideas come to me.

This removes the stress of shopping at Christmas time for sure, something I actually look forward to. By the time I venture out I know what I'm looking for and can relax doing it. The only real stress is parking so I don't wait until the last week (or day) before December 25. In fact, I'm usually done by the time December rolls around.

A few years ago I decided to buy Kathy a puzzle; which isn't something I'd done before and not something she spent time doing either.

But I chose a 1000-piece picture with horses and a carriage and Victorian style buildings in a beautiful winter setting.

I thought, this would be a relaxed way to spend some of the dark days of winter together doing something fun.

Thoughtful right? Romantic even?

I thought so too.

With music in the background, and a drink in hand, we started with the borders (we knew that much) and began to make progress. Nice right? Almost a Hallmark kind of scene.

But a few days into our new shared pastime, we both realized that puzzles were not our thing. I mean, Kathy couldn't stand it. The process, the pace, and the atmosphere couldn't overcome how much Kathy hated puzzles. I mean, it wasn't even up for debate; and soon we packed it up and eventually gave it away.

We haven't done a puzzle since. What a fail.

There's a puzzle store in our town but I can't figure out how it stays in business other than it must sell a lot more than puzzles. I've never been and it isn't on my itinerary this year either.

The following year I bought Kathy a 3-piece toddler puzzle to do with our grandson. That was a win.

I can't help but think this gift experience reflects how we might think about God...let me explain.

I don't think it's hard to see our lives as a puzzle, believing when we fit all the right pieces together, we'll be really living and things will go well. So we spend our lives searching and fitting pieces together. If one doesn't fit we remove it and keep looking for a better one.

Romantically, I hear some say their partner completes them.

I think this is problematic for a number of reasons and even more so when we apply the same thinking to God. We want God to be a part of our lives, in a way that fills a need or a hole in our lives.

But what if God was never meant to be a piece of our life, but our life...period?

Over the past few weeks we've been considering what the abundant life really is; and last week I shared how my client, life-assessment can be misleading. It's a problem to put God on equal footing or importance as every other area of our lives.

So if we see God and faith as a puzzle piece, we can minimize the priority God wants to be, and we fail to see God as preeminent.

It is a huge fail to see God as a nice-to-have, an add-on, or a puzzle piece that completes us. Worse than any Christmas gift mis-step.

"What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?" Matt 16:26

What do you think? I'd love to hear your feedback.