Sudoku

Two months ago, during an eight-hour plane flight, my sister Karen and daughter Megan introduced me to Sudoku. Know this: People who’ve tried Sudoku either love it or hate it.

At first, I hated it. Yet I had lots of time – and no desire to watch the in-flight movie or to read. With both companions sleeping or otherwise engaged, I puzzled over the puzzle Megan had ripped out and handed to me.

A Sudoku puzzle is created from a square grid containing nine rows and nine columns. Heavy black lines separate the grid into nine mini-grids, each with nine boxes arranged in three rows and three columns. A few boxes contain numbers. The rest are empty. You complete the puzzle by filling in all the boxes so that every row, column and mini-grid contains each digit from 1 to 9 only once.

My torn-out page announced, “Skill level – Easy.” Utterly stuck, I told Megan, “This is impossible!”

“Yeah, I was really stumped at first,” she said, “but then something clicked and I began to see how to do it. Don’t guess,” she instructed me. “You have to use logic.”

“Logic,” I told my brain. “Use logic.”

It took awhile – a long while, actually – but I finished that puzzle, then another, and another. Now I have a Sudoku book of my own, with four skill levels: Easy, Medium, Hard . . . and Diabolical. To date, I’ve worked puzzles at every level except Diabolical.

I’ve learned ways to determine what digits a box may or may not contain. I’ve finished some puzzles quickly – labored long over others.

More than once, I’ve thought, “This is impossible!” After strenuous pondering, I could see no way to place even one more digit. But with patience and persistence, taking breaks as needed in order to come back fresh, I’ve finished every puzzle I’ve started.

When stumped, I’ve realized: Moving forward may require discovering the sole move still possible. Once made, that move opens up another, and another, and the rest of the puzzle practically solves itself.

A month ago, I told God, “This is impossible!”

I wasn’t talking about Sudoku puzzles.

God himself has torn a page out of his book, so to speak, and handed it to me. From conception, I’ve held giftings and callings given me, not just to occupy time, but to accomplish something that matters.

You have a similar yet unique page of your own. As Ephesians 2:10 says: “We are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things he planned for us long ago” (NLT).

Recently, I’ve learned a lot about who God created me to be and what he created me to do, yet, eager to go forward, I could not find a way. Every step I tried to take proved a dead end. Utterly frustrated, I laid – er, threw – the matter aside. For several days, I sat on the couch, watching TV, working puzzles and crying.

Then, one day, God said to me, “Sudoku.”

Aha. God was speaking in tongues – and I knew the interpretation.

I needed, not to guess, but to see, not by logic, but by his Spirit. I needed to focus, not on all the steps that were currently proving dead ends, but on the one step that lay open for me to take. No matter how small that step seemed, no matter how insignificant, I needed to take it – and then to see and pursue whatever opened up next.

Oh.

I’ve learned to love Sudoku. And now, I’m practicing what my daughter’s puzzles preach.