When I sew, I hate it when my thread tangles up between the cloth and the needle. Most of the time, I just have to cut it, take out stitches, rethread the needle, and start over.
Have you ever been fishing and gotten your line entangled around an underwater tree branch? The only way to free the line is to cut it, losing the hook, bait, and bobber.
When I was about six years old, my cousin Norma and I went to a movie. Norma was chewing a big wad of bubble gum. She got tired of chewing it and couldn’t figure how to get rid of it, so she stuck it in my hair! Now, that was the worst of all tangles. I had very short hair for a while.
Sometimes our lives are tangled messes. We get tangled up with sin in our lives.
- The sin of worry,
- of neglecting our Lord Jesus,
- of gluttony,
- of lust,
- of selfishness…
We’re so easily drawn into the trap of sin. Look at these verses:
“For the Lord sees clearly what a man does, examining every path he takes. An evil man is held captive by his own sins; they are ropes that catch and hold him” (Proverbs 5: 21-22 NLT). Ever feel trapped like that? I do. If you could look at me today, I’m sure you’d see some rope.
The more we lapse into sinful behavior, the more lies we tell to cover it up, or the more we listen to Satan’s lies about our situation. Isaiah 5:18 (NLT) warns, “What sorrow for those who drag their sins behind them with ropes made of lies.”
How can we cut those ropes? By confessing them to God and letting him forgive us. The Lord will rescue us from every trap and become our place of safety. He will comfort us and free us.
Did you get all of that? Jesus is our way to freedom from all the tangled messes in our lives. When we’re being held captive by anything—poverty, fear, sadness, ill health, anger, lust, selfishness…He offers us release. No prison can hold us if He frees us. According to the Bible in John 8:36, if we choose Jesus as our Lord and Savior, he will set us free and we will be “free indeed.”
We’ll all have heartaches and difficulties until we die. But choosing God means we’re never alone in our difficulties. They will not hold us captive. With Jesus Christ in us, we know everything is going to be okay, even if the “okay” scenario isn’t the one we would choose.
God is the only one who can untangle us and set us free. Hebrews 12:1 (NIV) tells us to, “Throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.” We can only do that by his power. Once we give ourselves to him, all the other tangles and snarls can be undone.
Smoother Sailing 