When Chaos Crashes Your Life

One of my favorite contemporary worship songs has a great line that says, “You never stop, You never stop working.” While this is a great statement of belief, if we are honest, we would have to admit that there are times when it seems like God is not working at all. It is as if He has fallen asleep, like He has forgotten us.?

The Crash

For my wife and me, it all started when I came home from work, to be greeted by a wave of water when I opened the kitchen door. Our home flooded, so we moved into a hotel. Our daughter and two preschool granddaughters are presently living with us, so the five of us all evacuated. Then, while we were in the hotel, unknown to us until later, our home flooded a second time at the other end of the house, and this time insurance was not covering the cost. About 75% of our home was going to need to be have floors and walls redone. Then my wife and I both got COVID while we were still at the hotel. What is more, not knowing any of this was going to happen, we had bought a puppy back in June. While we were all in the hotel, our cute little puppy mangled my wife's glasses irreparably, and I ended up breaking?my glasses. Meanwhile, our other dog got sick and left a mess on the bed and all over the carpet. I am leaving out several other near-catastrophes for the sake of space, but you get the idea. Finally, after nine weeks in the hotel, we moved back into our home two days before Christmas and we began the slow process of putting our house back together. While we were still unpacking, adding to the dark comedy, we had an arctic blast blow through our area when a tire went flat on our SUV. I was not about to change a tire with a -5 degree wind chill factor, so I drove the car just over a mile to the tire store, where they told me that my doing so had voided the warranty on the tire, so we would have to pony up (It was?still?worth it!).

Then on Christmas morning, about 1:00 AM, our one-year-old granddaughter was having trouble breathing. At times, she was not breathing at all, so we had to take her to the hospital early Christmas morning. They kept her in the PICU for three days then released her. By the time she came home, the rest of us were sick in one way or another, some with just a cough or sniffles, but I had a stabbing pain in my throat that was so intense that I wanted to cry out in pain, but I couldn’t because that would only make things worse, so all I could do was curl up in a ball, writhe in pain, and silently cry out to God for relief. The pain got better the next day, but it came roaring back the next night, even worse than before. When I went to the doctor, I learned that the pain was caused by a deep in the back of my mouth. A couple of weeks on antibiotics, and the pain eased off. But what a crazy ten weeks! Needless to say, Christmas got punted. We celebrated Christmas on MLK weekend, which was the next real opportunity for the family to get together.

Beginning to Sort Through It All: The Book of Job

So, what to make of all this? As it turns out, I began to find answers at the end of the book of Job, when God comes down and speaks Job, one-on-one. In his speech, God discusses at length two chaos monsters—Leviathan and Behemoth, who spread chaos in the sea and on the land, respectively (Job 40:15–41:34). Much ink has been spilled in a quest to determine the exact nature of these two monsters—are they simply mythical? Are they dinosaurs? Are they symbolic? I believe these musings often miss the point. God does not bother explaining exactly what or who they are, but concludes that, in the end, no man can tame these chaos monsters. That is His point. Sometimes, chaos just rules, and there is just not very much that can be done about it.

Look again at the picture that heads this article. Look at the man on the left. Notice how small he looks in the face of Leviathan. We like to tell ourselves that we are the captain of our soul, that we can handle anything . . . and when things are going well, we tend to believe it. But when we come face to face with the chaos monster, we realize how pathetically helpless we really are. That is the dirty little secret that chaos unmasks.

Jesus’ Answer to Job?

But the book of Job is not the last word on chaos. In fact, Jesus adds to the conversation—not with His words, but with His actions. Remarkably, in both Mark 4–5 and in Luke 8, we witness Jesus standing up in a boat, in effect rebuking Leviathan the sea monster, speaking authoritatively to the wind and the waves and, to the amazement of His disciples, the chaotic sea obeys Him. Immediately after he rebukes Leviathan, strikingly, in both gospel accounts, He proceeds to cast out Behemoth, the monster on the land, when He meets the man in the tombs, and again speaks with authority, casting out the legion of demons that had been controlling the man. So, while the message to Job is, “Sometimes you just cannot control chaos,” Jesus’ message in the New Testament is, “I have complete authority, even over chaos.” Thus, Jesus presents an astonishing answer to the message contained in the book of Job.?

God’s Design in the Midst of Chaos

As encouraging as this truth might be, it leaves us with an unanswered question—Why then does God allow us to remain in chaotic circumstances? Why doesn’t He help us right away, when we first cry out to Him??

As it turns out, He has a specific reason in mind, and it is recorded for us in the book of Exodus.

Think about how God delivered His people from Egypt. He could have snapped His fingers and delivered His people, but He chose to bring deliverance through a process—a process that included a period when the Hebrews had to make as many bricks as before, but without straw (Exodus 5:1–13), a process that included a window of time in which the Egyptians were beating God's people (5:14–18), a process that involved ten plagues, which probably took months (chapters 7–12), and then?deliverance at the Red Sea (chapter 14). At the beginning of the process, it really looked like some kind of divine mishap, for after God first promised deliverance, things actually got worse, so Moses complained to God for not acting right away (5:20–23). Why did God allow all of this? Why didn’t God follow through right away??As it turns out, God had a specific reason:

Because there was?another actor?in the drama besides Himself and Israel.?

All too often, we get into a devotional mindset. A devotional mindset can be good in some ways, but all too often we embrace the idea that it is just “me and God,” and the rest of the world is simply incidental. But God tells Moses in Exodus 14:4b: “I will be honored through Pharaoh and his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am Yahweh.”?He had another audience in mind.?This?is why His plan took so long. He was determined to reveal Himself to this other audience through all of the events that were unfolding, and that took time.?

But God wasn't just thinking about the Egyptians. He was also thinking way down the line. Remember that, one generation later, before the Israelites took the city of Jericho, Joshua sent spies to the city. They stayed at the house of a woman named Rahab, who told them, in essence, “We are scared out of our minds because of you Israelites, because we know what your God did when you were coming out of Egypt” (Joshua 2:8–9). Then, several generations later, when the Israelites were engaged in battle with the Philistines, they brought the ark of God into the camp and raised a shout. Hearing the Israelites cry out like that, the Philistines wondered what was happening. When they heard why the Israelites were shouting, they were struck with terror, recalling how God had brought such dreadful plagues on Egypt (1 Samuel 4:7–8).?The story was still circulating. When God delivered His people from Egypt, He had?several?audiences in mind, including people who had not yet been born. When we are being bombarded, it is important that we keep in mind—it is not just about?us, and it is not just about?now. It was a humbling thought for me to come to terms with but, as pressing as my situation seemed to be, I had to acknowledge that God had other fish to fry besides just “me” and just “now.”

A Suggested Strategy

So, the exodus narrative teaches us that God is just as intentional that He be honored as He is that we get delivered—maybe more so. It is not that God doesn’t care about our pain; He does (see Exodus 6:5).?But His overall design in all things is to glorify Himself.?When we understand that, we will adjust our prayers. Instead of merely praying for deliverance, we will learn to pray that God will make Himself famous?by the way?He grants us deliverance. When we do that, we are learning to pray according to His will, and it is?those?prayers that God answers. John puts it this way: “If we ask anything according to His will, He hears us” (1 John 5:14).?

So, what do we do while we are in the middle of a fiery trial and there are no signs of letting up? Do we pray? Of course we do. Do we ask others to pray for us? Certainly. But beyond these basic, common sense actions, I would submit a 3-step plan for you to implement the next time chaos crashes your life and persists:

(1) Gather your own audience. You can do this by telling your non-believing friends what you are going through. That’s right—your?non-believing?friends. Let’s be honest. Too often, those of us who are believers have a condescending view toward our unbelieving friends that goes something like this: “If you were committed to God like I am, your life would get straightened out, like mine is.” Um . . . don't tell anybody, but those of us in the faith often have just as many issues as those on the outside—sometimes more. It takes a lot of humility to acknowledge to our unbelieving friends that we don’t always have it together, that we sometimes don’t know what to do. But there?is?a difference for believers. When life falls apart, we have somewhere to run. We can call on God. Better, our fellow-believers will gather around us and support us any way they can.?That?is our distinctive. So, when life blows up on you, don’t just tell your believing friends about it. Let your unbelieving friends see you in your hour of weakness. Let them see you caught off guard. But let them also see your deep faith in God; tell them that you have friends who are praying for you, because after all, we?do?have distinctives that clearly set us apart.

(2) Tailor your prayers to God’s design. Don’t just pray for deliverance. Pray for God to be glorified?in the way?He brings deliverance. Pray that it will have His undeniable handprint on it so that your audience will know beyond the shadow of a doubt that the end result is no mere coincidence.?

(3) Watch your audience. If nothing else, this will give you something else to focus on besides how lousy your life is at the moment. After all, it very well may be that God is allowing you to be tested largely for?their?sake. Watch for God to be working in their lives, not just yours.

The contemporary song I mentioned earlier has another line that is even more profound: “Even when I can’t see it, you’re working. Even when I can’t feel it, You’re working. You never stop, You never stop working.”?That?is a statement of faith. God has not fallen asleep. He has not forgotten you. He has a purpose, He has a design for everything, even the chaos, even when it persists.

#chaos #lifeadvice #inspirational #faith