Walking into the playroom, we were greeted by another huge mess. On this particular occasion, an entire tub of Legos was dumped and scattered across the floor. It appeared as a total disarray, but somehow, our grandson saw something different. Not grungy and disordered, but responding to it with "Just watch what I'm making."
We just couldn't see it yet. Neither did he, until he started working, assembling, taking apart, adding a new shape or two, forming new ideas in the very work itself.
The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the [mess.] Genesis 1.2
Something was about to happen. Something is still about to happen. God says, "Now watch this." He pours His order over it. What is beautiful is about to spring out of the barren ground.
For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible... Colossians 1. 16
May we not shy away from chaos, but instead like a child with a tub of Legos, see the messiness and confusion before us as an opportunity full of great and impossible designs and creations. In the process of moving the pieces around, connecting them, first one way and then another, we bring some kind of order to it.
And sometimes in that free-for-all, we discover a pattern we never saw before, a way through, two or a thousand unrelated items that go together after all, or something we thought was forever lost, that rolled a long time ago under the dresser. It was there the whole time.
As we draw closer to Him, God changes our eyesight. How can we view this with a fresh heart? In the book Every Moment Holy, two liturgies were written even for the sacred work of changing a diaper. Even the grungiest task can be redeemed into something new.
My grandmother was a master in handling a drastic need or huge mess. "Well, what can we do with this?" She navigated through the most difficult and grungy situations differently not just because she approached it differently. But, I think, because she actually saw it otherwise. Not as an untouchable mess, but something new coming to the surface, connecting the unrelated pieces buried in the disorder.
She knew from personal experience that God redeems, even the grungy stuff.
But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God... Psalm 73. 16
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