Water hoses. Now, they know how to kink themselves.
Power cords, kink away! Then there’s our shoelaces, kinked into knots no one can untie.
At times it seems easier to pull out the scissors and snip away, just so we can get on with life. We don’t have the time to continually unkink our problems. There’s too much of life pulling us every direction.
Our trip from birth to death is the same. Just when we’ve got our plans laid out, the stock market falls, our job interview goes south, or our medical prognosis takes us straight to the operating table.
“Yaaaah!” we cry. “God, are you up there?”
Proverbs 3:6 gives us our solution:
“In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”
Before we tout this as the easy way to slide through life, that’s not it. God isn’t saying, “Follow me, and I’ll be your down pillow.” He doesn’t install us on Easy Street. Life is life. We still must brush our teeth, wipe our noses, and put food on the table. We still must live.
We find an example of our relationship with God in Jeremiah 31:20:
“Is Ephraim (Jerusalem) my dear son? Is he my darling child? For as often as I speak against him, I do remember him still. Therefore my heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy on him, declares the Lord.”
We can break this verse into four parts:
Part one tells us we are the “darling child” of our Father. He treasures us as his favored offspring. We are special in his eyes.
Part two reminds us he will “speak against us.” He will correct our wrongdoing. He will refuse to tolerate disobedience even from those he loves.
Part three assures us he “longs for us.” Even when our path through life becomes kinked, and we falter, his love for us never wavers or fades.
Part four is our hope in our future, for our Father will “have mercy on us.” He knows the difficulties of being human, and he understands our failures. He is the progenitor of mercy, and through his hand, he reaches out unto us.
God wants to take the kinks out of our lives. It’s a process, not a transformation. We unkink one part of the hose, then that twists into a kink on down the line. When we get there, we unkink again. Our success comes in being diligent to stay the course, and that comes from trusting in our Father above.
Steadfastness counts. Every spiritual kink we untangle is one less problem to trip us up down the road.
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Code: FGO.K.13.16a.vp.esv