“Aaaaah,” Kaitlyn exclaimed as I stood at the door of the house where I had just arrived.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“It’s nothing,” she laughed. “I was just about to decapitate myself with this string.”

Christopher, the career missionary, explained that the string was something that a monk tied around the whole village as part of a New Year’s tradition. It wrapped around trees, utility poles, and a nearby bush like a maze.

The village had held the ceremony on Sunday, but I did not notice the string until Thursday. When the village manager came by, she told Christopher that someone probably had cut the string elsewhere. That was why it had lost tension and fallen over the gate to dangle in our driveway. I asked for permission to remove it. Then I prayed briefly before taking it down.

I tugged at the thin, white yarn. It did not give. I prayed again as I pulled the yarn away from a bush. It finally snapped. The string over part of the gate came away in my hand. I wrapped it up and tucked it into a trash bag beside the gate. The other end remained wrapped in the bush and wedged around one of the trees. I untangled the bush and managed to snap more of the string off. But the loose end was caught in a tree. I carefully picked my way over a drain to reach one of the thorny branches.
As I unwrapped the spirit string and it tangled repeatedly, I was struck by the thought of my heart. There are strings in my spirit that are unnoticeable until circumstances change. Then I recognize that my ability to move forward is hampered by the sins tied and wrapped around my soul. They seem insignificant from a distance. But as I untangle my thoughts or motives in my devotional time, I find a maze of ideas that do not align with God’s Word. As I press forward through prayer, sometimes it takes months, or even years, for God to remove these strings from my heart.

As a short-term missionary, I believe we have been commissioned to do what we can to help ourselves and those around us to disconnect from our ties to sin. The best way to untangle the strings is with love. As a violin teacher in Khon Kaen, I have spent time eating with friends, walking outside, chatting with neighbors, greeting people in our city, teaching lessons, and helping with evangelism efforts. Every interaction is an opportunity to form ties of love and truth that can help untangle someone from the things holding them back from God.

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