Complexity is temporary for the truthful.

A web weaved by one who intends to deceive stays intricate, tangled, confounding. It’s meant to lose people along its way. But the person of truth breaks down the steps, untwists the turns, and unfolds the bending to free the one strand used to form it all.

What a delight it was the day I learned the secret to untangling the lumped ball of necklace chains, twisted and looped on each other in a hopeless mess. I set it down on a firm surface and each loop landed next to the other. Teasing it apart with a small sharp point, perhaps a paper clip unbent for my purpose, the complexity pulled away. Each strand became its own again.

Life is complicated, we like to say, but anywhere within it, we can set it down on a firm surface and use our vantage point to glimpse a bit of straight in the mess of tangled. We can loosen loop after loop, lifting and tugging, over and under, gently freeing.

Lord, let the twisting fall away in my small space. Settle it where I may tease it apart to admire its beauty as One fine strand. Hiding its origin and identity was never your idea.