That being said, yesterday while I was at the our local Family Dollar in Eagle Butte I did some people watching as I waited to check out. No matter where you live, if you start watching people you are going to see a whole bunch of need. You will see a whole bunch of mess too. We humans have messed up this life so much with our bad choices. Sometimes bad choices are made with good intentions. Often though bad choices are made out of desperation or greed. We choose while forgetting that our choices will affect many people -- people we might not even know. And then bad choices can lead to more bad choices. And when we forget people are people and see them only as a means to an end, or see them as hindrances to what we want, really bad things happen and might be felt by generations to come.
BUT, oh there is a bit BUT -- God can be found in this mess. It isn't that He condones the bad choices we've made. It isn't because He somehow agrees with them or that He says let's just forget about them. it's because He isn't surprised and He can use us exactly where we are at: in the mess and chaos (even if it all was made by us).
Hawk (my 16 year old son who stays home with me. If you've read this blog often you know the back story) and I are reading the Bible straight through this year. We are reading The Message version (for some reason the linking system isn't working this morning but if you want to find out about it just put MessageBible.org into your address bar) translated into American English by Eugene H. Peterson. Presently we are in Judges. I want to share with you part of the Judges Introduction Peterson wrote. He writes:
"it is always something of a shock to enter the pages of the book of Judges and find ourselves immersed in nearly unrelieved mayhem. It might not gravel our sensibilities so much if these flawed and reprobate leaders were held up as negative examples, with lurid, hellfire descriptions of the punishing consequences of living such bad lives. But the story is not told quite that way. There is a kind of matter-of-fact indifference in the tone of the narration . . . God, it turns out, does not require good people in order to do good work. He can and does work with us in whatever moral and spiritual condition he finds us. God, we are learning, does some of his best work using the most unlikely people. If God found a way to significantly include these leaders (judges) in what we know is on its way to becoming a glorious conclusion, he can certainly use us along with our sometimes impossible friends and neighbors."
Where are you at?
Are you in the midst of mayhem? In the midst of a big mess made by your own (or your loved one's) bad choices?
God will help you sort it out in such a way that you might even end up being thankful for that mess because of the lessons and transformation God brings into your life because of it! I've seen Him do this in my life. And I'm sure He'll do it again.
Oh boy, you are so loved! Read your Bible today Please.