When the gap won’t let you look away
Have you ever done everything right and still felt it wasn’t whole, kind of incomplete, unfinished?
You know that feeling. You’ve given it your best. You stayed late. You prayed hard. You held your tongue when it mattered. You made the call. You had the conversation. You did what integrity required, yet, when it was all said and done, it becomes glaringly obvious, it’s not finished.
Like a jigsaw, you put the final piece in place, expecting it to be finished, complete – and there it is. The image you laboured over. The edges straight. The colours aligned. But somewhere near the centre, there is a gap. One stubborn space where cardboard should be. Small enough that others might miss it. Impossible for you to ignore. My friend Christina loves jigsaws and could probably relate to all of this. Maybe you can too.
Sometimes it is not just any piece. It feels like a corner piece. The kind that gives direction to the frame and that you instinctively guard because it holds the structure together. When that is missing, the whole puzzle feels unstable. Valuable pieces do not disappear quietly. Their absence feels structural. Hoovered up perhaps.
So you keep looking at the picture. Not casually. Intently. You trace the outline of the gap with your eyes. Squinting helps. You try to imagine what should be there. You turn over spare pieces again, hoping you missed something. The more you look, the more that space defines the whole image.
The missing piece is not always about effort. Sometimes it is about disqualification. The quiet suspicion that the gap proves something final about you. That because you failed there, spoke too sharply there, stayed silent when courage was required, you are no longer fit for the picture you thought God was building. The image is mostly intact. That one, solitary space feels louder than the rest combined. Pause for thought – or ‘Selah’ as they used to say in Bible days.
In John 21, Peter clicks ‘pause’ and goes back to fishing. It’s an import moment; the risen Christ has appeared. The tomb is empty. The great redemptive picture is unfolding. Aslan is on the move! And still Peter sits in a boat at night, casting nets into dark water. They catch nothing.
You can almost see him replaying the scene like a YouTube clip on loop in his mind, as if studying a puzzle he cannot complete. Then there’s a charcoal fire. A servant girl’s voice. “I do not know the man.” Not once. Three times. Publicly. Clearly. Loudly. And the noise of a feathered creature heralding the dawn; once, twice, and then once more.
Peter was no edge piece tucked away in the margins. He had stepped forward first. Spoken first. Confessed first. If anyone seemed like a corner piece in the early company of disciples, it was him. And now, when he looks at the picture of his own calling, he sees a space where courage should have been. A gap that feels central.
When Jesus appears unannounced on the shore, he does not immediately address the hole in the picture. He confidently tells them to cast the net on the right side, as if, and because, He knew better. The nets strain with 153 made-for-dinner fish. Grace fills their strong hands before he names the absence. It is as if he is gently redirecting Peter’s gaze. Stop staring only at the gap. Look again at the abundance. Look at who is standing on the shore. Breathe. Connect. Join the dots.
Then breakfast. Another charcoal fire.
Silence settles in. The crackle of wood. The smell of smoke. The quiet dread of making eye contact again. When you believe you are the missing piece, proximity feels exposing. You brace yourself.
Jesus doesn’t say He has a question, He just asks, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” #awkward.
Three times. Each question presses into the very space Peter has been staring at. Each answer begins to occupy what shame had claimed. We are told Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” Grace does not ignore the gap. It addresses it directly.
And all the while, the larger picture stands before Peter. The risen Christ. Scarred, yet very much alive. The cross behind him, the empty tomb behind him. The debt of denial already carried by grace. The missing piece does not disqualify Peter because the decisive work has been done. The straight-edge of the picture is not held together by Peter’s flawless courage, but by Christ’s finished obedience.
“Feed my lambs.” There it is. Mic drop. Call, commission and reconciliation in three words.
Peter must look again at the image of his life. Not through the lens of the gap alone, but through the presence of the One who fills it. The space that once seemed to define him becomes the very place where mercy sets him back into the story. The pieces of your story are no different… God has not finished by a long chalk.
