Episode 274: I’m Talkin. . .Order

I’m Talkin’, episode 274, for July 16th, 2023.

This is Joel from the I’m Talkin’ microcast, where I share my thoughts on a topic that has piqued my interest this past week.

This week, we’re talking order.

Just a little bit of definition so we’re on the same page.

This week, when I’m thinking of the word order, I’m thinking of a structure, of alignment of things, where things are in their proper place, so we have an order of how things are supposed to happen, or how things are supposed to look, where there’s some structure to it that looks good, and basically, I’m talking about order versus chaos.

The thing about order is that that is actually what people desire.

I don’t think anyone wants to live in a state of chaos.

I think they would like to have some order in their lives, not so much structure that their life can’t be fun, but they also want enough structure so that life has some meaning.

I think that, especially when I think of kids, that they desperately desire their home to have some order to it, that they know who’s in charge, they understand what’s required of them, and to live in peace and harmony with their household.

I think the world is very similar to a home in that respect, as people want to know how to live with each other.

They want to know what it takes to be orderly, what it looks like if a world is not in chaos, and yet, when we look outside, and not very far outside of our orderly circle, if that’s what we want to say, then we regularly run into chaos, and things rarely, if ever, go well when we are in chaos.

And therein lies the challenge for those of us who call ourselves Christians.

At one point, not too long ago, I thought about doing my own consulting business.

It didn’t go well because I don’t like to try to do cold calling on the phone, I’m not very good at it, trying to find clients, I just wanted them to knock on my door.

And the concept of the business was processes, and how you get more out of your business with the people that you have by having structure and order.

And the tagline was, From Chaos, Order.

And so that’s the concept that I was going for.

And in our world today, the chaos that we often come face to face with, we think, how do we live in that?

And as Christians, we have the ultimate in a God who created order from chaos.

He set everything in place at creation that allows the world to function and not fall apart.

He set the exact rotation around the sun, the exact physical rotation of the earth to allow us to stay grounded.

They call it gravity.

God set things exactly as they should be.

If gravity were to change by a minute percentage, things would not work here on the face of the earth.

And so what we have is a God who created order from chaos.

And we see that in the Bible, and where God is talking about over the waters of the deep.

It’s basically talking about disorder, and it’s talking about putting structures in place.

And he says, hey, the water can only go this far, the land can only go this far.

All those things God set in place in a perfect, let’s see, in a perfect world structure that we in the human race have managed to turn back into chaos.

So as Christians, what are we to do?

Well, I think the one thing that we need to do is recognize that we have the answer to the chaos of the world, and that is the order of the Bible.

That is who Jesus Christ is, what he did on the cross, who God is, what he did in creation, who the Holy Spirit is, what he does in the work of every Christian’s life.

And we can be agents of order in a world of chaos.

And if we recognize that our lives need to show that we believe in a God of order, that we believe in a God of sovereignty, that we believe that God controls the world that he made, then our lives and the order that they portray will draw others to who Jesus Christ is.

They’ll draw others to believe who God is.

And we, in our own little way, in our own little interactions with people as Christians, can then live solely for the glory of God, and doing that, bring order to people who are in chaos.

Until next week, this is Joel from the I’m Talking microcast.