When Chaos Crashes Your Life

One of my favorite worship songs has a great line that says that God never stops working. While this is a great statement of belief, if we are honest, we would have to admit that there are times when it seems like God is not working at all. It is almost as if He has forgotten us.

The Crash

For my wife and me, it started when I came home from work, opened the kitchen door, and was greeted by a wave of water. Our home had flooded!

Our daughter and two preschool granddaughters were living with us, so all five of us evacuated to a hotel. Then, while we were there, our house flooded a second time—at the opposite end. This time, insurance wouldn’t cover the damage. Altogether, about 75% of our floors and walls would need to be redone.

Then my wife and I both got COVID.

Meanwhile, our new puppy mangled my wife’s glasses beyond repair, I broke mine, and our other dog got sick and made a spectacular mess of the hotel room. I’m leaving out several other near-catastrophes, but you get the idea.

After nine weeks in the hotel, we finally moved home—two days before Christmas. But the chaos wasn’t finished.

An arctic blast arrived, and our SUV developed a flat tire. With a wind chill of -5 degrees, I wasn’t about to change it myself. So I drove a little over a mile to the tire store, only to learn that driving on it had voided the warranty. We had to buy another tire. (Still worth it!)

Then, around 1:00 Christmas morning, our one-year-old granddaughter began struggling to breathe. At times, she stopped breathing altogether. We rushed her to the hospital, where she spent three days in pediatric intensive care.

By the time she came home, everyone in the family was sick. I developed an infection in the back of my mouth that caused excruciating throat pain. I wanted to cry out, but I knew that that would only worsen the pain and lengthen my recovery time. I could only curl into a ball, open my mouth in a silent scream, and beg God for relief. It got better the next day, but then came roaring back, worse than before. Thankfully, antibiotics eventually brought the pain under control.

But what a crazy ten weeks!

Needless to say, Christmas got punted. We finally celebrated on Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, the next time the family could get together.

Beginning to Sort Through It All: The Book of Job

So, what do we make of all this?

I began finding answers near the end of the book of Job, when Yahweh finally speaks to Job out of a whirlwind (Job 38–41).

Genesis tells us that God brought order to creation and commissioned human beings to subdue the earth (Genesis 1:28)—in essence, to be agents of furthering the order He had already begun establishing. Similarly, He placed Adam in the garden to cultivate and keep it (Genesis 2:15).

But Job reveals another side of that creation story—a world filled with wildness, unpredictability, and forces beyond human control.

Consider two extraordinary creatures God describes: Behemoth and Leviathan (Job 40:15–41:34). Several scholars hold that Behemoth represents the great chaos monster of the land, while Leviathan represents the chaos monster of the sea. The main point God makes in describing these creatures is that no human being can hope to control them.

This shocks our orderly bent. This is how we are designed. We build homes, establish communities, cultivate the land, and try to make life manageable. But when chaos crashes into our lives, our orderly world suddenly refuses to cooperate. We try to put things back together, only to discover that much of what is happening lies beyond our control. We often find this predicament to be enormously frustrating!

There’s nothing wrong with trying to restore order when chaos crashes into our lives. That’s how we are wired. The problem arises when our bent toward order metastasizes into a demand for complete control.

Job had to discover that distinction. God showed Job a world filled with realities that no human being could fully understand or hope to control. What we need to come to terms with when life spins out of control is that we are not designed to exercise total control. For this reason, we need to remind ourselves that none of the issues we are facing are beyond God’s ultimate authority.

And that prepares us for something remarkable in the Gospels.

Jesus’ Answer to Job

Job isn’t the last word on chaos. Jesus adds something astonishing to the conversation—not merely through His teaching, but through His actions.

In both Mark 4–5 and Luke 8, Jesus and His disciples encounter a violent storm. The disciples are terrified, but Jesus stands and rebukes the wind and the waves, and the sea obeys Him! Think about the connection to Job. There, Leviathan represents a power no human being can hope to tame. Here, Jesus confronts the raging sea and brings it to complete submission with a word.

But the story doesn’t end there. Immediately afterward, in both Gospel accounts, Jesus encounters a man possessed by a legion of demons. This man is beyond anyone’s ability to restrain or control. Yet Jesus speaks, and the demons must obey.

Notice the progression: First, Jesus exercises authority over the chaos of the sea. Then He exercises authority over the destructive forces tormenting a man on land. The parallels are striking.

But there’s an even greater point: What no human being can control, Jesus commands.

Job reminds us how helpless we are before forces greater than ourselves. The Gospels reveal the astonishing authority of Jesus over those forces.

Chaos may overwhelm us. But it does not overwhelm Him.

God’s Design in the Midst of Chaos

As encouraging as this truth is, it leaves us with a question: If God has authority over chaos, why doesn’t He always intervene when we first cry out to Him?

The Exodus story offers an important insight.

When God set out to deliver Israel from Egypt, He could have accomplished it immediately. Instead, He unfolded His plan through a lengthy process.

And initially, things actually got worse!

After Moses confronted Pharaoh, the Israelites were ordered to make the same number of bricks without being supplied with straw (Exodus 5:1–18). Their foremen were beaten, and Moses himself complained to God that His promised deliverance seemed to have accomplished nothing (5:20–23). Then came the ten plagues, followed by the dramatic deliverance at the Red Sea.

Why such a prolonged process? One reason was that God had a broader agenda—bringing honor to Himself in the eyes of others outside of His own people.

Too often, we approach our circumstances with what I call a devotional mindset. We think primarily in terms of “me and God,” as though everyone else is incidental to the story. But God’s purposes can reach far beyond us.

Remember that, while the plagues were occurring, some Egyptians were showing signs of fearing Yahweh, protecting their animals from the plague of hail (Exodus 9:20). They were not merely passive observers. They were responding to God’s revelation concerning Himself. Later, at the Red Sea, God still has the Egyptians in mind, declaring that Pharaoh and his army “will know that I am Yahweh” (Exodus 14:4)—fulfilled at least in part when they exclaim, as their chariots drive with difficulty, “Yahweh is fighting for [Israel]!” (Esodux 14:25)

But the audience extends. A generation later, when Israel’s spies entered Jericho, Rahab told them that the inhabitants had heard what Yahweh had done at the Red Sea—and their hearts had melted with fear (Joshua 2:8–11).

Then, several generations later, when the Philistines learned that Israel had brought the ark of God into battle, they panicked. They remembered the plagues God had inflicted on Egypt (1 Samuel 4:7–8). The story was still circulating!

When God delivered Israel, He had more than one audience in mind. And some of those who would hear about His mighty acts hadn’t even been born when the events took place.

This realization challenged me. When my family was being bombarded by one crisis after another, I naturally wanted God to intervene—and quickly! But the Exodus story reminded me that God’s purposes may extend beyond my immediate circumstances.

It’s not just about me. And it’s not just about now.

A Suggested Strategy

The Exodus story teaches us something important: God is concerned not only with delivering His people, but also with revealing Himself through the way He accomplishes that deliverance.

This doesn’t mean He is indifferent to our pain. Quite the opposite! In Exodus 6:5, God tells Moses that He has heard the groaning of His people.

But His purposes extend beyond our immediate relief.

When we begin to understand this, it can change the way we pray. Instead of asking only for deliverance, we can also ask God to reveal Himself through the way He brings it about. As John reminds us, “If we ask anything according to His will, He hears us” (1 John 5:14).

So, what can we do when chaos crashes into our lives and shows no signs of letting up?

Of course, we will pray and ask others to pray for and with us. Further, we will take whatever practical steps we can to address the situation. But I would suggest three additional steps:

(1) Gather your own audience.

You can do this by telling your non-believing friends what you are going through. That’s right—your non-believingfriends. Let’s be honest. Sometimes we Christians give the impression that having faith means having everything under control. But believers experience the same crises, disappointments, and bewildering circumstances as everyone else. It takes humility to acknowledge that we don’t always have it together or know what to do.

But there is a difference for believers. When life falls apart, we have somewhere to run. We can call on God, and we have fellow believers who can come alongside us.

So let your unbelieving friends see you in your hour of weakness. Let them see that you’re struggling, that you don’t have all the answers. But let them also see your confidence in God and the support of His people.

Make them thirsty for what they do not yet have.

(2) Tailor your prayers to God’s design.

Don’t just pray for deliverance. Pray for God to be glorified in the way He brings your deliverance. Pray that His handprint will be so evident that those watching will recognize His work rather than dismissing it as a coincidence. While we cannot dictate how God will answer, we can ask Him to use even our most difficult circumstances to make Himself known.

(3) Watch your audience.

If nothing else, this will divert your attention from your own pressing circumstances. After all, God may be accomplishing something through your circumstances that has as much to do with their lives as with yours. Watch for God to be working in their lives, not just yours. Remember Rahab and the Philistines. God’s work may reach people and generations you will never know.

The worship song I mentioned earlier has another line that is even more profound, stating that, even when we cannot see it or feel it, God is still working—and He never stops. That is a statement of faith. God has not fallen asleep. He has not forgotten. And when chaos crashes into our lives, we can trust that His purposes extend beyond what we can presently see.

Let’s Hear from You Now

The next time chaos crashes into your life, what could you do differently if you remembered that God may have an audience in mind besides you?