When I was little, I wasn’t the best at taking care of nice things. It didn’t stop me from trying to have them, and for a time I had a necklace I adored. But being me, I found myself with it tangled one day. Scared that I would ruin it, I tugged at the knots, but it was too late. My treasured necklace was wadded in an impossible knot that I couldn’t untangle no matter how hard I tried.
Fortunately for me we happened to be visiting my grandparents and my mom had a solution. “Let Papa try it,” she suggested “He’s amazing at this stuff. I don’t know how he does it but he can get any knot untangled.”
So still sniffling a little, I took the wadded up necklace to my Papa in the hopes that he could save it.
And Papa stopped what he was doing and turned all his attention to it. He sat down with me at the table, grabbed a pencil and started examining the problem from all sides. In that moment the only thing he was focused on was getting my necklace untangled.
Papa meticulously worked at the knots the pencil while I perched nearby and watched. He frowned with concentration and kept leaning in closer and closer to the problem. But by bit, he pulled the mess apart. Tugging at a knot here, slipping a bit of chain around there. Slowly but surely the necklace started to come undone.
That was years ago, but I was struck recently by how similar that event is to how God views us and our problems.
So often our knee jerk reaction is to hide all the things going wrong from God. Whether it’s because we think we can handle it ourselves or we don’t want to trouble God with what’s wrong, we have this tendency to hide our problems away. But that’s the exact opposite of what He wants us to do. God wants us to come to him with our problems the same way my mom sent me to my Papa. He wants us to come running up to him with our messes clutched in our hands and simply ask for help.
Big or small, God wants to hear it. He wants to solve your problems. He isn’t expecting you to have it all together. In fact he already knows you don’t. He already knows exactly what the problem is and what he can do for you. He’s not rolling his eyes and groaning “What do you want now?”. Nope. He’s eagerly at the ready with a “show me the problem” attitude for his children.
God wouldn’t constantly refer to himself as our father if he didn’t deeply desire a relationship built on our ability to turn to him in trouble. He chose that title for himself because that’s how he wants us to see him. His role as father isn’t a downside to his role as creator of the universe. It’s the role he most cherishes. The love and dedication I saw in my Papa that day is only a diluted echo of the overwhelming love God has for me and all the messes I need help with.
We need to remember that God is for us with this kind of love and tenderness. It is our greatest guard against slipping into the treacherous thought pattern of needing to have all our messes cleaned up before we come to God. We don’t have a mess, clean it up, and come to God. The order should always be have a mess, come to God, and hand it over to be cleaned up. It’s what your father wants.
God is with you and he’s wanting to untangle your messes. All we have to do is hand them over.
Let’s Find some joy,
A
Avalon Robinson Author 