Some of you may be familiar with Shel Silverstein’s wonderful story The Missing Piece. It’s been called a modern-day fairy tale, but I’ve always thought of it as more a parable of life. The story goes like this:

Once there was a circle that was missing a piece. A large triangular wedge had been cut out of it. This distressed the circle very much—since, like any of us, it wanted to be whole. So one day it set out in search of its missing piece.

However, because it was not complete circle, it wasn’t able to travel very fast. It could only roll slowly and carefully down the road. As a result, it had plenty of time to admire the beauty of the countryside. It marveled at the way the wildflowers seemed to turn somersaults of joy in the summer breeze and watched intently as the butterflies danced in the tall grass. At night it listened to a choir of insects offer their vesper hymns … and every morning it stood in awe, as the sun painted the dawn with streaks of orange and yellow.

Along the way, the circle came across many pieces, but none of them seemed to fit. Some were too big, others too small. Some too square, others too pointy. So one by one, the circle left them all by the side of the road and kept searching.

Then one day—just as the circle was about to give up—it discovered a piece that fit perfectly. “At long last,” the circle thought, “I can be whole … for I have found my missing piece!”

Of course, now that the circle was completely round, it could travel much faster. So fast, in fact, that it no longer noticed the beauty of the countryside. It rolled too quickly to look at the wildflowers or to listen to the insect choirs. It rolled too quickly to watch the butterflies dance or to marvel at the majestic sunrise.

When the circle realized how different the world seemed, it suddenly stopped … left its missing piece by the side of the road, and rolled slowly away … still looking for something that would make it whole.

No doubt, there are numerous ways to interpret this story, but one of things it says to me is that we may actually be more whole when we admit that we are missing something … than when we are attempting to achieve self-sufficiency. Indeed, as far as I can tell, we were never meant to achieve self-sufficiency.
The good news for those of us who keep trying (and usually failing) to manage life all by ourselves is that we don’t need to! God is far more capable, far more creative, far more generous and knowledgeable at managing our lives than we could ever hope of being. The Apostle Paul told the Corinthians: “Therefore, I am content with weaknesses … for whenever I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:10). He might have put it this way: “Whenever I discover that I am missing something that I know I can never fill all by myself … then, and only then, do I become whole.”