Order

There are many things we do in this world that grow wearisome over the course of a lifetime. Near to the surface may be the constant battle to bring order from chaos. This world and everything in it is constantly drifting toward chaos, maybe even full-throttle.

Jordan Peterson would beckon us to “confront the chaos of being.” Chaos is where we are when we don’t know where we are. In short, chaos is all those situations we neither know nor understand. Naming it is spacious, helpful and true. We are consistently being prescribed resilience in times of uncertainty, upheaval and disruption. Life, as we know, keeps on changing, and there is no clue of it letting up. Yet there is eternal wisdom is going back to wisely step forward. Genesis 1 insight for 2021 struggles.

God is acquainted with both order and chaos. Whatever God created in the very first moments of creation was “without form and void.” We may not know all that is caught up in that little phrase. Whatever was there was incomplete and unformed. Perhaps even the first chaos encounter. As God began to move in his week of creation, he brought order from that initial disorder. He organized, He formed, He made, He filled. From that unformed substance emerged the beauty and the order of this world. But it emerged only by God’s creative effort, will and handiwork. Chaos gives way to order.

Then God created people. God created us in his image and assigned us God-like work: to bring order from chaos. This work of bringing order from chaos is beautiful and significant work. It is God-like work, God-assigned work. Victor Hamilton says it well: “The point is made clear here that physical labour is not a consequence of sin. Work enters the picture before sin does. Eden certainly is not a paradise in which man passes his time in idyllic and uninterrupted bliss with absolutely no demands on his daily schedule.” Humankind was created to work, an invitation to co-work within God’s good creation. It’s not only work that has dignity, but the specifics of bringing order from chaos. Chaos is chased away by order. Chaos is healed by order. However, resisted or rejected.

A journalist asked the late, great Pavarotti about the discipline to have achieved so much. Pavarotti looked down at his expanding waistline and said ‘I think you mistake obsession for discipline!’ Pavarotti got lots done but not by the way of discipline. He was determined, passionate, obsessed even, but not disciplined. Chaos was his way.

Chaos lurks near and is darkly addictive. Alluring, devouring, chaos. Navigating this disruption is exhausting and the raw work of our citizenship and discipleship. Redeem the moments: squeeze the uncomfortable goodness out of each moment in forming ordered beauty. Partnering with God is the daily thrill of our lives: a beautiful, patient and fragile craft.

Order is the invitation to a better way. “For God is not a God of disorder but of peace…” In the midst of the chaos of life, God is enduringly near. We are never alone. God ever loves you and wants only the very best for you even in the midst of the stormy seas. Last Wednesday in morning prayer with some of our church family, we sat with Psalm 46. I felt God impress on me that the beautiful antidote to the storms of life is to come into the stillness of God! Simply put: if we don’t surrender to Christ, we surrender to chaos.

Join me in daily bringing order out of chaos.

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