Genesis 1:2 NIV
Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness
was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the
waters.
What Do You Do About the Chaos?
Several years ago I was leading a Bible Study in a
home and when we finished, I walked out to my van but it wasn’t there. Up and down the street I wandered, hoping I
had just forgotten where I parked but the truth was that it was gone. Someone had stolen it while I was “doing
God’s work”. Inside it was my laptop, an
IPod and my digital camera. I am not
sure what hurt the most, the loss of the van which I often had griped about or
the fact that it happened while I was hopefully pleasing God. The chaos in my head was I am certain easily
seen as I struggled to make sense of what had just happened. This was
unreasonable and not fair and infuriating.
It did not seem right that God would let this happen to me.
Chaos comes to all of us some time or another. It is
usually unexpected and unnerving. Some
seem to manage chaos well but others of us have a tough time coping with
it. We like order. We want to know what to expect and have a
plan in place when troubles come.
Perhaps you handle chaos well.
You rather like chaos and the adrenalin rush it brings. But it might be that the unexpected storm
rattles you. Suddenly you crack your
tooth or you lose your wallet or you get in a car wreck. In a world broken by sin and thrown into chaos
as a result of the rebellion of humanity, we can never assume everything will
go smoothly or all our plans will come to pass as we hope. It is more than just “drama” that you face;
it is without warning out and out madness.
Before God created humanity and the creatures of the
earth, the Bible says that the world was literally as the Hebrew words
indicate, chaotic and disordered. Now the earth was formless and empty,
darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering
over the waters. (Genesis 1:2 NIV)
It was in this state of disarray that the Lord in six days structured
the universe and brought to the earth order.
Water was in its place. Land was
separated from the oceans. Day and night
were structured and species of land, air and sea creatures were separated from
each other. Everything was put in place
and love and peace ruled the earth. But
then Adam sinned and the world was again in chaos with animals attacking each
other, diseases bringing terror and humanity unstable and tossed about by anger
and lust and jealousy.
Into this world entered God. Jesus Christ was born of a virgin and built
His life in an isolated part of the world that was largely ignored by all the
great civilizations. God by coming to
us, did so in order to make the world once more rational and in every way
good. Jesus had a single mission; to
take out of you and me sin and by doing so remove the chaos of Sin from the
world. David perfectly describes the chaos of this world and how difficult it
can get for you. …my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and my body with grief. My life is consumed by anguish and my years
by groaning; my strength fails because of my affliction, and my bones grow
weak. (Psalm 31:9-10 NIV)
Not every day is like this but enough are to paint a
picture of how far chaos can go in this world.
It is frustrating and sometimes overwhelming; the chaos we encounter and
like I struggled trying to make sense of the loss of my van, it is normal to
wonder why there is so much chaos. After
Jesus sent His disciples off in a boat to cross the Sea of Galilee with Jesus
peacefully asleep, chaos erupted. Without warning, a furious storm came up on
the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping.
(Matthew 8: 24 NIV) It astounded the
disciples that Jesus could sleep through all that wild commotion but privately
many of them must have wondered why God let such a great storm come upon them
when they were doing God’s work.
While He was teaching some in the crowd mentioned
the tragic slaughter of some Galileans by the Roman governor Pontius
Pilate. It seems that they wanted Jesus
to explain why God let them be killed. Now there were some present at that time who
told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their
sacrifices. Jesus answered, "Do you
think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans
because they suffered this way? I tell
you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in
Siloam fell on them — do you think they were more guilty than all the others
living in Jerusalem?” (Luke 13:1-5 NIV)
Jesus does not welcome at all the hunt for blame when tragedy
strikes! Yes, the world is filled with
both sinners and chaos but one person’s sin is not the cause of the chaos we
find. The disciples had a similar
question for Jesus when they came upon a man who had been born blind. His
disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he
was born blind?" (John 9:2 NIV) Jesus’ response was perhaps not
what they expected. "Neither this
man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that
the work of God might be displayed in his life.” (John 9:3 NIV)
When we look at the chaos all about us, we are
asking the wrong question if we are trying to draw a straight line cause-and-effect
relationship between who we are and what we face. The assumption or at least the expectation
must be in every case that chaos is to be expected but every time chaos occurs,
we must look for God to see what He does.
Why the storm? Why the
massacre? Why the blindness? We cannot give an explanation for it other
than that we live in a wrecked and chaotic world. But when you see chaos, always look about for
God too.
There is an illustration of how you can gradually
develop this approach to chaos. During a
different storm on the same lake, Peter, along with the other disciples was in
a boat crossing the Sea of Galilee when a storm developed and the winds began
to blow strongly. The chaos however went
beyond the storm. During the fourth watch of the night Jesus
went out to them, walking on the lake.
When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified.
"It's a ghost," they said, and cried out in fear. (Matthew
14:25-26 NIV) Jesus though reassured
them. But Jesus immediately said to them: "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid." (Matthew 14: 27
NIV) Famously, Peter, trusting Jesus to
take care of him, got out of the boat and started walking on the water just
like he saw Jesus doing. At that moment,
Peter recognized the chaos but looked for God in it. Soon though, the storm was all he saw and he
started sinking into the water. Chaos
has that effect on us. We can let it
overwhelm our sensitivity to God.
Peter had another opportunity to look past the chaos
and see God in it but he didn’t make use of the opportunity. When Jesus was arrested by the Jewish
leaders, Peter thought all was lost and even though our Lord told him and the
others that this was part of God’s plan, Peter panicked when He saw Jesus
beaten and humiliated. Three times he denied
to the people watching with him that he even knew Jesus. It was a lost cause to Peter and he could not
see God in what was happening. In just a
couple years though, Peter was not so lost.
What turned everything around for Peter was that
Jesus rose from the dead after He was crucified and as for all other true
Christians, the Holy Spirit became a part of his personality. From that point forward, all the mental
strength and moral power of God was a part of him and can be a part of you too,
Peter could never get completely lost in chaos.
Although it may not seem traumatic like being caught in a storm or
watching as Christ was being beaten there was nonetheless a tremendous challenge
Peter faced after the Holy Spirit came on him and the others the day of
Pentecost. The disciples started facing
persecution. James the Apostle was
executed for his faith in Christ as was the deacon Stephen and Peter was more
than once arrested and threatened with death.
Peter had started to make a regular practice of trying to see God in
whatever he faced and after having moved away from Jerusalem he stayed with
some friends in the Roman dominated town of Caesarea. While there, some messengers came to him from
a Roman centurion, asking Peter to come to the centurion’s home. There were two problems with the
invitation. One, Peter was Jewish and
Jewish people did not go into the homes of those who weren’t Jewish. More
importantly though it was a centurion who wanted to see Peter and this was a
great challenge for Peter. It was the
Roman soldiers who executed Jesus. This
quite possibly could have been a threat.
What was Peter to do? Would he
trust Christ within the chaos of going to see the Centurion or let his fear
rule him and stay home?
The decision Peter finally made enabled Peter to see
God in the chaos he faced. Before that,
God was in the storm, He was there to trust too but he did not see it. After that, God was in the crucifixion of
Christ and He was there to trust but Peter didn’t see it then either. Now, the invitation to go to the centurion’s
house, although frightening and risky had God there too just like with the
other two chaotic moments. There is a
crisis of faith for you every time you face chaos. Do you believe God will see you through
this? Will you trust Him to help you and
carry you? Do you believe He loves you
and that the chaos you have now will be worked out by Christ and that although
it might be hard now and very hard, He will stay with you no matter how rough
it gets? Peter had to go through some
rugged and painful experiences before he became convinced that the Lord was
good enough to trust within the storm and not just when the warm and gentle
breezes were blowing. God’s peace is not
theoretical, it is practical. It is of
no use if you cannot have God’s peace when chaos comes. Your chaos is your opportunity to test the
Lord’s power to see you through it and as you trust Christ in the chaos, He is
proven to be good and really good. When
you see Him there, in the middle of your chaos, you will learn and learn
completely, that your Lord is bigger, and stronger and kinder than you ever
imagined.