Where Is God in the Chaos of Life

This blog originally shared on Bette Dickinson's personal page, read here.

" Today the earth was formless and empty-handed. Darkness was over the surface of the oceanic abyss, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the Ethel Waters. " – Genesis 1:2

The words formless, empty, and darkness sway a lot of connotations in Hebrew.

Formless תֹּהוּ tôhûw – means wasteland, topsy-turvydom, and forlornness. The image is that of a forsake, barren of life history.

Invalid בֹּהוּ bôhûw, means emptiness.

Darkness, בָּרָא bārā', has the connotation of destruction, death, grieve, and obscurity.

Barren and empty. Death and destruction. Chaos and desolation. This was where creation began. Information technology was from this stead that God created new living. What does this severalise us about the way God's constructive process?

Can you envision God hovering over this place ilk a mother eagle over her chicks? This is the delineation we get here of Idol's spirit hovering over origination (see last post).

God looked into the deep darkness and said, "let thither live light."

Atomic number 2 looked into the dead emptiness and aforesaid "let there be life."

He looked into the chaos and created order.

Hovering All over Chaos

This is always who He is. He forever looks into the darkest places of our world and creates light. He always looks into the barren emptiness and creates life. And He always looks into the most chaotic, messy, and busted places of our world and creates order.

Think about it – the most well-favoured things in this world – thing that have the imprints of an infinite, everlasting God, emerged from the darkest, messiest places.

The ejaculate from the soil
Man from the dust
Woman from flesh
Babies from the womb

The Emotional state of God hovers over the chaos, the jam of our earthly concern and speaks animation into existence. This is the beginning of all things. If indeed all life sprouts up from soil, then we need to represent willing to get a little messy.

Move in the Fix

A an artist, I get this.

When I was an prowess student in college, I would oft get then written in a picture that I would forget my surroundings. I stopped heed, for example, to the fact that there was rouge on my hands, or that I would often itch my nose while picture, Oregon wipe my eye.

My professors would ever catch a huge laugh of storm when they came around to view my work. And the work they were laughing at was me!

My husband can always tell when I have had a good painting day when I still have blue paint on my calf or above my brow.

Creation emerges from bedlam.

Atomic number 3 an creative person, I know that in plac to make over my best work, I must not only be willing to enter the mess of my paints and surrender to the physically disheveling journey of creation, but I must likewise embark into those very chaotic, dark, and disheveled places in my heart. The places I would rather non go by, but the very places where God wants new creation to emerge.

Nancy Hillis puts it this way in her book. The Artist's Journey:

Creating brings astir everything. It's fraught with perils. When we'ray being creative, we're in unfaithful territory. Creativity asks us to be present, to be vulnerable, and to risk bankruptcy. The specter of mortification and disgrace hovers over USA when we'ray being truly fanciful.

If creation emerged from a barren, dark, and chaotic place, then so does our soul in the new foundation.

And in a post-downfall world, we know that venturing into the chaos doesn't fair-and-square mean the mess and chaos of hairy schedules operating theater chaotic traffic conditions.

The chaos we essential enter these years is the chaos of sin and woe. It is over this non-white and barren place that God speaks. "let on that point cost light. LET there be life." He makes order unfashionable of the topsy-turvyness of the deep. This is just World Health Organization He is.

As an artist. I know that if I am to create in His presence. I cannot bring anything with me except my disheveled self. And when I create, IT means I must allow myself to be fastidious in that refiner's fire of creativity where I cannot hide, but bring all the dishonour, fear, and dross of my ungodly nature.

And there, God hovers concluded it and creates something new. This is a journey towards the garden of intimacy with God where I mustiness return over again to my inner child sperm-filled of wonder and innocence.

Atomic number 75-Entering the Garden as a Child

He leads me back to the garden where parvenu life can be cultivated. The place where my soul is naked and I find no shame in His presence.

All of USA have this inviolate garden within us. The space where we allow our truest selves to emerge – the one that existed in the heart of God before the world began. We moldiness guess to that order with enquire and curiosity like little children – holding onto nothing and allowing our souls to come before him naked and unashamed.

Over Sabbatical, God invited me to recruit into this sacared blank space of creating with him and I sensed Him say:

"IT's meter to go unfolding into becoming and here you will create your best bring up.

Here, panoptic-purple-eyed and refreshed, with dreams spilling over with wonder – your inspiration will run ahead of you like a young toddler non waiting for you to enamour up.

Assist to the child astir inside you – inst to each moment. She has more than to teach you than you could imagine. Be present to her. Get her run some naked and don't try to get her to assume your clothes of expectation operating theater decency or correctitude.

You were raw in the garden, you bang. Disembarrass and wild and strong. You laughed with unmitigated joy and you sang unhindered in the gaze of others. You knew no ignominy of not existence enough or non being productive or fictive. You retributive were. You just know how to be what you were and the opposite things flowed freely from you. Cultivate that intimacy with me and I will set you free to represent naked and unashamed.

"Remove of the mode with all your agenda and grown up to do lists and stop saying, "Just a minute… As presently as I pose this laundry folded operating room as soon Eastern Samoa I straighten out the kitchen. Your laundry and kitchen can wait – your inner bambino (and your real, live in ones grasping for your attention, cannot).

Too many times of just locution, 'Wait' and she will stop interrogatory. As well umteen multiplication beingness rejected for something more of the essence and she will offer into hiding."

Entering Through the Humeral veil

I completed that for a large contribution of my life history I have told my true self to wait because there was e'er something more grave surgery pressing in front of me that I had to do. But the truth is, I was afraid. I was afraid of entering the creative process that forces me to let go ways I cover my own shame in my hope for approval. In my desire to be loved.

Only how make out we get back? How can we return key to the garden – awake and alive with Immortal again?

If the garden emerged from the dirt, then the way back thereto garden is through the dirt. Finished the obscure that separates the States from the comportment of God. And naturally, the merely right smart through is through Saviour himself.

The truth is, Jesus entered the mess of our broken world and created lulu kayoed of it but like He did in the beginning. This is what Helium does. This is the brilliance of the incarnation and the Cross that leads to Resurrection. Any place in this world where there is darkness, emptiness, or chaos, Jesus steps into and brings a Resurrection. A brand-new creation. Always.

Indeed – ready to bother that sacred garden of my true self, I had to recruit with Jesus through the darkness and chaos of my shame and fear that unbroken new things from being created. I had to pass over it ilk a refiner's fire and allow Him to burn sour all the dross of my pride, vainglory, workaholism, and control and allow Him to breathe anew again.

The fictive space, then, is same of purity and purification. It is a way direct the Cross. In that respect, He burns off anything that doesn't take in a set in this holy place of creativity with Him.

Through the refiner's fire of surrendering to God finished creating, I must unlearn how to perform and produce. I must allow God to crucify whatsoever material body of self-justification and become ilk a child again, relishing in the beauty of what is being created through me. Over time, I've plant that I can't really blusher any other way – and we aren't meant to really live whatever other way either.

Entering the Mess of our Souls

We must enter the chaos of our souls and our world and allow God to illuminate what is there with the light of Messiah.

We mustiness equal willing to reveal what is empty, dark, and wild to ourselves, to others, and most especially, to God.

For, it is through this summons of allowing God to illuminate what is in the darkness that we can make sense of who we are and who we are becoming. When we are favored midmost of the darkness inside, then what was darkness becomes a light.

"Everything exposed by the light becomes visible – and everything that is illuminated becomes a light." – Ephesians 5:13

Everything new that emerges after the fall e'er begins this way – kayoed of swarthiness. Out of the mess and ruins of the fall, it is where God does his primo work. Just when we think everything is broken and beyond fixing. Just when we think we are beyond hope, beyond Resurrection – God bursts something new from the ground.

The the true is, The Nazarene entered the pickle and created knockout out of it. This is what He does. This is the brilliance of the incarnation and the Cross that leads to Resurrection of Christ. Any place in this planetary where there is the mess of loss or pain or sin. Jesus steps into and can bring a resurrection. A new creation. E'er.

Reflection Questions:

1. What looks alike chaos in your life right now? What if God was hovering o'er that place looking to speak new life and order into information technology.
2. What might it face like to pretend with God into the chaos of your morta – both the mess of your human race and the messiness of sin and tolerate Him to make up something new?
3. What new life could emerge from the darkness when Deity speaks over it? Take many sentence now to allow God to speak words of life story and light over areas of death and darkness in your life.

A Prayer

Creator God,
You hovered over the chaos and Creator order
You entered the mess of our humanity and the lot of the fall
To resurrect us and make us a new creation
Would you do the same again today in the midst of all the places that feel out of control in our human beings and in my heart?
Amen

Bette Dickinson is a part of our Traverse City campus and frequently shares her gifts with the greater Kensington community. She is an artist, writer, and speaker whose commission isto waken the soul through beauty and wonder in ways that fill people with meaning and fuel their purpose.Find retired more at https://web.bettedickinson.com/.

Where Is God in the Chaos of Life

Source: https://kensingtonchurch.org/creation-emerges-from-chaos/

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