When Everything Goes Haywire
I was watching news on television as scientists explained what went haywire with the big old Hubble telescope. Seems like an ironic expression. A billion dollar telescope goes haywire? I wondered if those NASA officials had ever been around real haywire before.
Some words are too good to keep on the ranch. In fact, many kids raised on a ranch today have never seen haywire either. Most bales these days come tied with orange poly plastic twine. But for about a century, hay had been secured with two thin, tough wires. Once cut and hay fed to cows, you gathered the wire and twisted it in some haphazard fashion. Then, you tried to toss it far away from the cattle.
The Dangers
My neighbor lost a $3,000 bull when it swallowed a haywire. Uncounted numbers of livestock have died over the years from ingesting bits of haywire. Around the ranch there used to be a barrel or pile or gunny sack with wadded up wire. The word began to take on the symbolism of anything crazy or muddled or twisted up. Sometimes it seems like this whole world has gone haywire.
One Bible writer laments in Ecclesiastes 1:15, “What is twisted cannot be straightened; what is lacking cannot be counted.”
Life is full of unsolvable paradoxes. Individuals, families, reputations, and sometimes churches appear to be wadded up and tossed aside. Many give up trying to straighten them out.
But there’s hope. We aren’t useless scraps of baling wire.
Proverbs 3:5&6 reminds us, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.”
Now, that’s what we need–someone to untangle our messes. So, we entrust our failures and struggles to God. And acknowledge His Lordship over us. Come to think of it, no reason to wait until our life goes haywire to do that.
Stephen Bly
Circa 1995
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