Peace Verses Chaos
Last week, we read about the story of Creation -- how the Spirit of God hovered over the waters, how He spoke into the chaos and darkness and brought about the beauty and order of Earth.
This month has been a rough one for me. It seemed like every catastrophe was hitting, one right after the other. I was reeling. I felt like Job -- blindsided by a series of tragedies, yet hoping in God. And I hung onto the fact that his story turns out with things being restored and, beyond that, they were even better than before.
A friend started talking to me about chaos. And that word latched into my mind as a pretty good way to describe what my life was looking like.
She said that Shalom -- the peace that encompasses perfect wholeness, with nothing missing and nothing broken -- is a two-sided coin. One is bringing in that perfect peace and the other is kicking out the powers that cause the chaos. Remove the chaos and establish the peace.
My life had chaos.
Somehow her words gave me some direction. Kick away from the chaos and toward the peace and order, seeking God.
That's when the 1st chapter of Genesis really started coming alive for me, in a new way. In the midst of all the turmoil in my life, I felt like God moved over me, just like He moved over the waters at the beginning of Creation. And slowly, things started to take shape. Broken things being mended. Lost things being restored. I wasn't metaphorically drowning any more. I felt like I had my footing again. And my footing was in Him.
He never left, and I was never lost. I think we were like a parent and child on the beach. The child got hit by a big wave. The parent, unalarmed, reached down and pulled the kiddo up to his feet again. "Stick closer to me, and the next one won't knock you off your feet," the parent says calmly. And the child snorts the water out of his nose, shakes the sand out of his pants, and trots along after his parent.
That's what the big picture looked like. But I have to admit that the 2 seconds under the wave -- which in my case was about a month long -- seemed like a very long time, with no end in sight.
I like the visualization of Creation. The lights, the seasons, the day/the night, the growth and reproduction, the walking in the garden in the cool of the day. There's a rhythm to it. A beauty. A peace. An order.
That's what I want my household to look like -- a place of beauty and order that always has Him in he midst of us.
Shalom.
This month has been a rough one for me. It seemed like every catastrophe was hitting, one right after the other. I was reeling. I felt like Job -- blindsided by a series of tragedies, yet hoping in God. And I hung onto the fact that his story turns out with things being restored and, beyond that, they were even better than before.
A friend started talking to me about chaos. And that word latched into my mind as a pretty good way to describe what my life was looking like.
She said that Shalom -- the peace that encompasses perfect wholeness, with nothing missing and nothing broken -- is a two-sided coin. One is bringing in that perfect peace and the other is kicking out the powers that cause the chaos. Remove the chaos and establish the peace.
My life had chaos.
Somehow her words gave me some direction. Kick away from the chaos and toward the peace and order, seeking God.
That's when the 1st chapter of Genesis really started coming alive for me, in a new way. In the midst of all the turmoil in my life, I felt like God moved over me, just like He moved over the waters at the beginning of Creation. And slowly, things started to take shape. Broken things being mended. Lost things being restored. I wasn't metaphorically drowning any more. I felt like I had my footing again. And my footing was in Him.
He never left, and I was never lost. I think we were like a parent and child on the beach. The child got hit by a big wave. The parent, unalarmed, reached down and pulled the kiddo up to his feet again. "Stick closer to me, and the next one won't knock you off your feet," the parent says calmly. And the child snorts the water out of his nose, shakes the sand out of his pants, and trots along after his parent.
That's what the big picture looked like. But I have to admit that the 2 seconds under the wave -- which in my case was about a month long -- seemed like a very long time, with no end in sight.
I like the visualization of Creation. The lights, the seasons, the day/the night, the growth and reproduction, the walking in the garden in the cool of the day. There's a rhythm to it. A beauty. A peace. An order.
That's what I want my household to look like -- a place of beauty and order that always has Him in he midst of us.
Shalom.
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