“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete. Not lacking anything” (James 1:2-4 NIV).
I’m a knitter. I tell people that I am a novice because I only create baby blankets (or flatwork). These type of pieces are never anything too complicated. I upped my game and joined a knitting group. Soon after, the instructor handed me a new kind of yarn. It was a type that I had not worked with before. As an eager student, I took it and promised I would start a project with the new material.
I started working on the yarn but found the yarn more difficult than other yarns. The fibers were not wrapped together as with other yarns that I had used. These fibers were connected side by side on a string. The single fibers acted like barbs and were easily tangled. I had only crafted a small triangle when I hit a huge snag. The yarn was tangled. It was wrapped and twisted in on itself. I thought “I don’t want to cut this yarn.” I knew that I could unravel the knots and twists.
The knitting instructor had recently given the class a lesson on unraveling yarn in such a state. I was going to apply the lesson of “Shake and Pull don’t Twist”. I shook and pulled on the yarn and didn’t get anywhere. A co-worker suggested that I needed to cut the yarn. My pride told me that I could unravel the yarn without cutting it. I wanted the blanket to be crafted from one continuous length of yarn. Finally, I laid my pride down and made a cut. I tugged and pulled on the one end. I lost the cut end in the mass of yarn. I struggled some more then I made another cut and held onto both ends.
As I shook and pulled the yarn, I had revelation. God similarly pulls and shakes us as He is making us more like Himself through our perseverance (James 1). When we have twisted and wrapped ourselves up with the barbs of this life and cannot see our way out of a situation, God comes and make strategic cuts to the yarn of our lives. Jesus comes and reunites those cut strands without leaving knots.
Dear Lord, I belong to you and so do my trials, struggles and difficulties. I give you permission to untangle me, cut out the things tripping me up, and to pull me to you. Amen.
Will you allow Jesus Christ to pull, shake and even cut the yarn of your life?