Bringing Order To Your Chaos!

Today…I want to talk to you about God’s ability to bring order where there’s chaos.

Scenes of Chaos:

My Daughter's Bedroom (came home to find it swarming with termites)

Tornado aftermath (Joplin)

Mt. St. Helens (aftermath)

Sometimes our lives can become chaotic. At times…the chaos is inevitable…situations / circumstances out of our own control can create chaos. Still…there are times where our own action / inaction is the source of the chaos we are experiencing.

Psalm 51:10 (NIV) - “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”

So this is David’s prayer after being confronted by the prophet Nathan about his affair with Bathsheba and the killing of her husband, Uriah.

David is repentant. He’s humbled. But his life is filled with chaos as a result of his own choices.

Listen to the wording The Message Bible uses when expressing David’s prayer in Ps. 51:10. “God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.”

Fresh Starts are great! Clearing the deck. Wiping the slate clean. New beginnings. I love a clean…blank piece of paper. New…clean sheets on the bed! A new book.

Example: Golf (Muligan)

David cries out…God…give me a mulligan! A do-over! A fresh-start! A Genesis week!

“God, I can’t make a fresh start in my own power…step into my situation and bring order / peace to my chaos.”

“God…I’ve made a mess of things…forgive me…but don’t just forgive me…help me…turn things around!”

If something is “Fresh”…it is: New, not previously known, not stained or spoiled, youthful, healthy, vigorous, dynamic.

David is saying, “Lord, launch something creatively new and healthy in the innermost part of who I am…my heart…my mind…my soul.

David says, “Shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.”

Example: Watching the glass blower at Silver Dollar City shape a lump glass into something beautiful.

That glass blower is: fashioning something…giving it definite shape…fabricating something beautifully formed out of something formless.

That’s what David is asking God to do…and that’s what God can do out of the chaos of your life as well. From the very beginning…God has taken chaos and created beauty in it’s place.

Genesis 1:1,2 - “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.”

The Message describes the state of things at the beginning of creation as being, “…a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness.”

The Living Bible puts it this way, “…the earth was a shapeless, chaotic mass.”

There is nothing hopeful in this…except…God’s Spirit was there…hovering over the chaos.

And it’s into this soup of nothingness…this bottomless emptiness…this inky blackness…this chaotic mess…that God starts to bring order. God brings meaning and significance and beauty where there had been only chaos.

God is still doing the same thing today. The H.S. was hovering over the chaos of David’s life…and He’s hovering over the chaos of your life…just waiting to respond to God’s creative, life-giving, declarative Word over your life.

And when God speaks:

He gives form to the formless.

He fills the empty places with good things.

He brings life and light to the darkest of places.

He takes the clutter and puts things where they belong.

He takes what is lacking and makes it excessively good.

He takes the depleted…and brings increase.

He takes things & people who have no significance…and uses them to accomplish monumental / eternal things.

He takes hopeless / dark / utter confusion…and speaks vision / brings light / and delivers peace…where there was none.

I’m here to remind you…there has never been a time God was not. There has never been a time…God wan’t in control. He was there before the chaos…He was there when there was nothing but chaos…and He was there after the chaos. Think about this: Before there was a created “order”…there was a created “chaos” over which the Spirit hovered. Nothing catches God off guard. He never panics. We serve a God who brings order out of chaos. He can still take your mess and mine…and make something beautiful out of it.

We live in a chaotic world…filled with people who are living chaotic lives. Lives that are without form and void. Lives that are empty…lacking…in disarray…upheaval…shambles. There are so many people who are desparately in need of some kind of escape from the mess they’ve made from their lives. Can I just declare it to you?…We have the answer! We have a God that can take the most chaotic of situations and create something beautiful out of it all. We have a God that we can trust when things in life go wrong. Who brings order to the chaos of our lives.