Finding God In The Change: Fight Fear, Failure and FatigueSample

Chaos, Crisis and the Need for Control

Change can trigger crisis mode, as we do our best to create room for the new, and adjust from what was, to what is. We’ve built our entire lives around the person we were. Chaos comes when we are in the middle navigating the disruption of a life we constructed back there, that no longer works for us where we’re going. 

For example, I used to drop it like it’s hot in the clubs. Partying like it was my job. (It wasn’t. This was 100% a problem.) My friends loved the club, experimenting with drugs, drinking alcohol, creating an image, and not dealing with anything at all, ever. When I made the difficult decision to face my past, and start dealing with the issues that were causing me to binge, to hide, and to run from the truth, I struggled to relate to, and remain in relationship with, my friends, as I grew.

Getting sober, and seeing with new eyes, changed my life for the better, but, it also catapulted me into chaos, crisis, and scrambling for control. Listen to me, Jesus told all the doggone truth, when He said the truth will set you free, but first, it will sort of ruin your life. I couldn’t be that same old person, and I wasn’t strong enough to enter those same old places, with the same old people, without returning to my familiar and destructive habits, so I had to begin to rebuild my life around the wholeness and integrity I wanted to see infiltrate every facet of my existence. 

That was lonely, let me tell you. But I was getting free, and the pain of changing suddenly felt less overwhelming to me than the pain of remaining the same. Opportunity is found in chaos. There were times I didn’t think I would make it, but here I am, a few decades later, no longer relying on the same habits to get me through. 

Transition doesn’t always trigger external chaos. Years after the club days, I met and married my husband. The birth of our first son felt like the catalyst for a series of changes in our career, faith community, and city of residence. Even with a new (non-sleeping) member of the family, our life was comfortable, healthy and we had margin to spare in our resources, time, relationships, and home. There was no personal crisis. There was no external chaos. 

Internally though? A different story altogether. The fear of transition created questions and concerns. Would we ever sleep again? Were we making the right choices to shift our family? Was our career path the right one? Why had we felt God calling us to move? Why would we leave all of this behind? At times, we didn’t know what to do, if we were doing the right thing, or where it would lead us. All we had was a word from God, and faith. 

Faced with the need to control the narrative, we had to stop the internal chaos. Through a slow process, we began to see that God was and is in control of the narrative, that our integrity was intact, that all we had to do was trust and obey. 

We left what we knew, the beautiful life we loved, to shift gears, just because God was inviting us to do it. To say that it's been tough, would be a gross understatement. But when I say we know it was the right thing to do, I mean it with all my heart. 

Obey in chaos. Trust in crises. Surrender control. That’s the recipe for the good life.

PRACTICE: Hebrews 10:23 says, “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.” Think about another transition in your life, perhaps a time when you weren’t sure how things would turn out. Reflect on the faithfulness of God to you during that time. Thank Him for getting you through other difficult seasons of life, and remember, that if He did it then, He can do it again.