If any of you, beloved, seem to be in a knot of difficulty of which you cannot get the thread, look to Him who is perfect wisdom, and let the tangle go out of your hands into His; turn the matter over to Him. What is impossible with you is perfectly possible with Him who is Almighty!

A little child at mother’s knee Plies woolen strands and needles bright. Small, eager hands strive earnestly To fasten every stitch aright. But soon perplexing knots appear Which vex and hinder progress’ flow; Impatient fingers pull and tear, While ever worse the tangles grow. How surely then in wiser hands The roughest places are made plain! How easy now the task’s demands, How wonderful the lesson’s gain! Thus, God, we bring our snarls to Thee; Though human sense and stubborn will Oft clamor loud for mastery, We hear alone Thy “Peace, be still.” EDITH SHAW BROWN

How tangled some of our problems do become as the days pass and no way appears by which the matter may be straightened out! Perhaps we have been keeping the problems too much in our own hands. No wonder, then, we cannot find the beginning or the end of the line, or how to loosen the knotted strand in just the right places. A young man writing to his father about a personal problem says: “Once again, just yesterday, I have put this whole matter in the Lord’s hands, and asked Him to guide me about it all. I often think of how I’d get my fishing line all tangled up. The more I pulled the worse it got. Finally I’d hand the whole thing over to you, and you’d smooth it all out. So I generally do that with my problems now; and I’m trying to learn not to pull at the line much, before I give it to Him.” Have you been pulling at the line in that problem that troubles you today? Just hand it over to your heavenly Father, and see how swiftly and lovingly He will untangle the crisscross and knotty impossibility that has troubled you so! SUNDAY SCHOOL TIMES

With thoughtless and Impatient hands We tangle up The plans The Lord hath wrought. And when we cry In pain, He saith, “Be quiet, dear, While I untie the knot.”

This was for Cyrus; but it is evermore the heritage of all the Lord's own spiritual servants. Only let us go forward by faith, and our way will be cleared for us. Crooks and turns of human craft and satanic subtlety shall be straightened for us; we shall not need to track their devious windings. The gates of brass shall be broken, and the iron bars which fastened them shall be cut asunder. We shall not need the battering ram nor the crowbar: the Lord Himself will do the impossible for us, and the unexpected shall be a fact.

Let us not sit down in coward fear. Let us press onward in the path of duty, for the Lord hath said it: "I will go before thee." Ours not to reason why; ours but to dare and dash forward. It is the Lord's work, and He will enable us to do it: all impediments must yield before Him. Hath He not said, "I will break in pieces the gates of brass"! What can hinder His purpose or balk His decrees? Those who serve God have infinite resources. The way is clear to faith though barred to human strength. When Jehovah says, "I will," as He does twice in this promise, we dare not doubt.