Knots untied .......... Parables 649

August 3, 1999

When someone is impatient, my dad used to say, “Don’t get your shirt in a knot.” After a stressful day at work, my husband often has a few knots in his back. When I’m asked to make an impromptu speech, my stomach knots up.
To a boy scout, knots are over hands, half hitches and sheep shanks but these are knots of a different kind, knots that tell us stress is ruining both inner peace and physical comfort.

Someone made a poster picturing a huge, knotted rope with the words, “Let Jesus untie the knots.” Despite the picture, the slogan is not about over hands or half hitches either. The artist who designed the poster encourages others to find God’s secret for dealing with stress.

So how does God do it? Does He take away the problem? Sometimes. More often than not (no pun intended), He deals with everything from root causes through to painful symptoms.

One root of stress is unwelcome experiences such as a loss, deep pain, unresolved conflict with others, accidents and other trauma. However, the world’s “worry warts” knot up just thinking about them, so another root of stress is needless anxiety. People worry that something bad is going to happen or something good is not. Maybe there will not be enough money to put food on the table or buy a winter coat or pay the mortgage.

Health issues create stress too. Some worry about cancer or heart attacks. Most people fear death. One illness takes a toll; what about two more? These stresses can tie us in knots.

However, even with the basics covered, we can get our shirt in a knot. What if there is not enough money to pay for Susie’s education or Johnny’s braces? What about that new carpet or those winter tires? How will I handle my new promotion? How much more of my time will be eaten by this commitment or that? What will I cook for dinner? What will I wear to the party?

Stress relates to performance. What if my work is not acceptable? What if I lose my job? Deeper still, what if my life has no significance? Where will I go when I die? What if God will not let me into heaven? More knots.

To untie these knots, Jesus offers us an unusual alternative. If we take His offer, we will find ourselves living in two worlds. One is our existence here with all these threats and stresses. The other is residence in the kingdom of God where the rules are not the same. When we allow His kingdom to have the primary place in our lives, His rules override life’s stresses.

For example, in this world, we must work for a living. In the kingdom of God, we live under a promise that He will take care of all our needs. Jesus said, “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things (referring to the basics) will be given to you as well.”

God ensures we will not go without. If we need a job, He provides it. If we need a raise, He can work that out too. He knows all about us and provides whatever we need. He never leaves us stuck, either with decisions or to do it ourselves. He asks that we simply trust in His care.

In this world, we also experience loneliness and rejection, but in His kingdom we have unlimited love and acceptance. He promises He will never leave us nor forsake us. His Spirit lives in our hearts and we can continually communicate with Him through His Word and prayer.

In this world, we experience pain, illness, and all the stressful negatives of life, yet those who live in the kingdom of God rely on His unchanging promises. He does not allow more than we can handle. He works all things together for our good, even the negatives, to make us more like Jesus.

Just as there are two kinds of “knots,” there are two ways to live; on our own with whatever resources we might have, or in both worlds — relying on His power from one to untie the knots in the other.

Jesus feels our pain .............................. Parables 135

It was a fine fall morning. She went out to move the car from the driveway to make room for garage sale customers. Suddenly the front door flew open and she fell inside, writhing in pain: “The car ran over me!”

We rushed to the hospital. Several x-rays later we were told our daughter was very fortunate. No broken bones, only massive bruises.

Later in the day, as I looked at her pale face and watched her limp, my own leg started to throb, in the same place, above the right knee. Friends chuckle yet tell me they too have felt sympathy pains for those they love. There is nothing wrong with me, I just ache where she aches, but she has all the bruises.

Now, as shock and fatigue subside, I have been thinking how may times I have felt sympathy pains. The same daughter went off a horse in a California desert, scooped up a handful of sand with her arm on the way down, and left it embedded for the emergency nurses to scrape out with a nylon brush. My arm burned too, right in the same spot.

Our oldest lost a ski half way down an icy hill in Alaska and turned one foot around backwards. He was in agony . . . and my leg ached with his.

When I was a teenager, my horse suffered a deep wire cut just above the hoof. You guessed it; my foot hurt too.

This week, when our family looked in the Psalms for comfort, we read: “As a father pities his children, so the LORD pities those who fear Him . . . ” Isaiah 63:9 says, “ . . . in their affliction, He was afflicted . . . ”

We were reminded that God not only feels for us, He shares our trials as well. He can do that because He knows just exactly what we go through: He lived in a human body too. “The Word (God) was made flesh and lived among us.”

Jesus was hungry, thirsty, tired, and tempted (but without sin). He knows exactly what pain feels like, exactly what grief and sorrow do to our hearts. Hebrews 4 says Jesus “was touched with the feeling of our infirmities.” Actually, He suffered more than any of us can imagine.

When Jesus left this earth, He did not stop feeling our troubles with us. In Acts 9, a man named Saul was persecuting Christians, throwing them in prison with death sentences. Finally, the risen Christ confronted him with this: “Why are you persecuting ME?”

Because His Spirit lives within those who trust Him, He is still right there when we hurt, sharing our pain, feeling great sympathy and compassion. When we experience the emotional sting of rejection or persecution for His sake, He also feels every taunting word, every whiplash, every assault received, just as if it had been laid on Him personally!

As I watch my daughter limp and my leg throbs in sympathy, I am joyfully reminded that Jesus does it better. Somehow, that makes the loads lighter, the tensions easier, even the aches a little more bearable.

We can lean on Him, whether we suffer from broken hopes or broken hearts, knowing that He knows just how we feel.