Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Tangled Messes

Suggested Bible Reading: Psalm 139

When he was alone with his disciples,
he went over everything, sorting out the
tangles, untying the knots.

 Mark 4:34 (The Message)

My husband is a great untangler. Early in our relationship I found him with a coed’s tangled mess of necklaces on a table before him. Sometimes the process took longer than others but, his patience always paid off, because he never failed to unravel the knots. He was the “go to” guy for sorting out tangles.

Getting into a knot is much easier than getting out of one. Like a pile of tangled necklaces, the life choices that we make can suddenly knot us up. The harder we try to detangle ourselves, the more tightly knotted we become. We need a patient hand to unravel us.

Jesus saw a lot of tangled, knotted up people. For some their knots were of their own making. For others their tangles came about due to illness, cultural estrangements or political decisions. But all of them needed the patient hand of Jesus to sort them out and he never failed to unravel every single knot. There were those, like the Pharisees, who in their panic knotted themselves even further, but for those who wanted to be un-tangled Jesus spoke, “Your sins are forgiven.”

It doesn’t matter how our knots came into being. But, first we have to stop running around trying to untie them ourselves! Our efforts only make them tighter. The patient hand of Jesus will take our tangled messes and unravel them to beauty.

Thought for the Day: What areas of my life does Jesus want to untangle and bring to beauty.

Jesus, time spent with you
makes things far less complicated and tangled.
Help me to remember that whatever the situation,
Your patient hand will unravel it.
Amen.

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