Thoughts Written on Returning from the Funeral of a Dear Friend - a young Christian man who left behind a young wife and a very young son...
	The world rejects/refuses the authority and authenticity of God's Word, therefore they are compelled to try to assemble some kind of patchwork picture of God based only on what they can see in their lives and the lives around them - as they are fallen sinful men (as we ALL are) in a fallen sinful world, their homemade picture of God is >also< limited and incomplete and often mistaken BECAUSE they cannot appreciate the true significance of ANY of the pieces - like a jigsaw puzzle, they can grab a piece and say - "ah! It is blue! Or has blue IN it! But, is it sky? ocean? a piece of carpet? NOT having the >whole< picture to compare it to, they cannot say and so even having some of the pieces, even being able to describe each piece they have in exquisite detail and even able to fit a few of those pieces together, they STILL canNOT appreciate the WHOLE picture, often fitting pieces at random, creating a sort of >form<, but with a totally distorted picture - lacking ANY understanding of the WHOLE picture, they are blind men trying to put the puzzle together by FEEL ALONE.
	But the Christian who HAS and ACCEPTS God's Word as authoritiative, as an ACCURATE AUTHENTIC description of the living God is able to start out with the WHOLE picture - God has gone to tremendous lengths to reveal Himself, His character, through and in His written Word and THEN turn to the events of his life and understand each separate piece of his life as he comes across it. 
	Lacking GODS revelation of Himself, the unsaved man must attempt to DEFINE God based solely on the events in his life;
	BUT the Christian, already HAVING a FULL description of God's character is ABLE to define the events in his life BASED on his picture of God.
	The 1st seeks to define his God based on his life
	The 2nd is able to define his life based on his God.