Order vs. Chaos

Do you feel like our world is out of control?

Listening to the news can make me feel like a ping-pong ball at the mercy of whatever is hitting me at the moment, a product of circumstance. With the COVID 19 pandemic, the social unrest, and the great political divide, I am feeling vulnerable and shaky.

But thankfully our circumstances are not the only things that can disrupt our lives.

My sister Alison shared this simple story of how she lets God’s disruptive grace change her thinking.

Alison had a part-time job as a florist when she was nineteen, and that is where her love affair with flowers began, specifically with the white lily. If you don’t know the flower imagine the perfume of a gardenia coupled with long elegant white petals that point to heaven. It is said that this flower rejuvenates the soul.

Ever since Alison’s flower shop days, I can’t remember her dining table being without them. Just like roses have thorns, lilies have a downside; their pollen. It is messy and stains everything it touches. Alison, being the wiser and older sister, knows how to nip it in the bud (pardon the pun).

Just when the flower petals slightly part and it begins to open its mouth, Alison reaches in to remove the stamens before the staining dust forms on its tips. Alison then counts them in her hand. The number is always six it never varies. Not in literally the thousands of times she has counted them, from age nineteen to now fifty-nine.

This tiny act reminds her that no matter what is going on around her, God is a God of order. No matter how out of control things may seem, He is in control, and that never changes. This truth provides her with the strength and security to think beyond her present circumstances.

The most profound answers can be found in the simplicity of nature. God tells us through creation that He is a God of order. A God we can trust, even if the world has gone a little crazy.

What reminds you of God’s order?