My father was a military guy, and he liked order. This rubbed off on my sisters and me. We all tend to get a little antsy when things aren’t in their proper places. I think I’m more tolerable of untidiness than my other siblings. Sometimes I leave dishes in the sink overnight and can go a couple of days without hanging up my clothes, but I recognize and appreciate the discipline of order. When I don’t have it, I’m not as comfortable. The procrastination anxiety of having too much on my plate to manage will ultimately drive me nuts. So, I try not to let things get too out of hand in my living space. I enjoy that ‘feel-good’ sense of calm that you get from cleaning up and having things tidy. If only life could be that way most of the time, we’d be all set.

One can appreciate the ability to compartmentalize, because that’s what we do in life. We can have order in one area, but total chaos in another. We can have confidence in what we’re doing in one aspect of our existence, like our jobs for instance, but when it comes to other areas, we can’t figure out what’s up and what’s down. Very often, this seesaw effect is most apparent in our relationships because intimate connections reveal our greatest vulnerabilities. We’re not perfect. We’re going to make ‘big time’ mistakes. This comes with the human experience. It is important, though, to forgive ourselves for those mistakes. It is equally important for us to recognize, especially in our relationships, that we are in a process of development.

If life proves nothing else, it bears witness to evolution and progress. Life is an ever-changing and evolving dynamic. As believers, this means trusting the reality that life doesn’t end because our physical bodies die. We are born once physically, and then born-again spiritually. The first birth gives us life on earth, and the second birth gives us life in the Spirit through Jesus Christ. The second birth is an eternal reality. Jesus Christ always knew what he came to earth to do, and he also knew the suffering he’d have to endure to make the second birth a reality for humankind. In John 3:14-16, he spoke of his death to Nicodemus and said that he had to be lifted up and crucified on the cross. He said that everyone who believes in his mission, sacrifice and resurrection would receive eternal life.

Eternal life is life that never ends. There’s little to no reason to become better humans if we have no hope of life beyond what we can see day to day. Because our hope is in Christ, we understand that life affords us a choice to become better versions of ourselves through God’s love, and not through negativity or hate. We can choose better because of Christ and what he accomplished, and we can be present in the moment knowing that we are WORKS-in-progress.

God has designed life in such a way that the more we comprehend that it’s Him who does the untangling of life’s messes, the more progress we make. We move ahead by leaps and bounds if our mode of operating is one of not interrupting what God is doing in our lives. He’s teaching us a new and better way of handling life’s hiccups, and the lesson is that we should not use our words and thoughts to block His flow and further tangle things. We block God’s work through doubt and negativity. These are groove killers. They take us out of the realm of faith, and therefore block the process and the progress.

All it takes is one time—just one time for you to speak positive words of hope unrelentingly over a troublesome situation. A commitment to do so will get you hooked by the results it yields. This is achieved by saying what God says, and He says that through the faith of Jesus Christ, all things are possible by believing and trusting Him. Jesus Christ said in Mark 11:23 that we can speak to a mountain and tell it to move and be cast in the sea; if we command this with no doubt in our hearts, that mountain is outta here. If we believe, and don’t doubt in our hearts, we will have what we confess by faith.

This isn’t always an on-the-spot or overnight reality. It’s a process, just as we are a work in process. It takes a lifetime to get some things right down here, and just as we must be patient with our own self-growth and development, we must be patient as we continually apply faith, and not fear, to the situations of life.

God will make our crooked paths straight. If we confess and think anything that doesn’t jive with this truth, then we’re thinking and confessing something that is contrary to who He is and what He has said in His Word. Doing this, falsely thinking and confessing, is dangerous business, and we should want no part in it.

God wouldn’t give us these powerful spiritual tools if life were always easy. We wouldn’t need them if we didn’t make mistakes and if we didn’t need to learn to walk by faith. God has given us His Word so that we walk in the Spirit and in the grace of all that He’s made available to us. Let’s believe that God will untangle the tangled messes of our lives, and let’s trust Him with all our hearts by speaking and thinking in alignment with His power and love. ■

Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

“Untangling A Tangled Mess” written by Fran, edited by PMB for DomesticAbuseAwareness.Org ©2019. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!