Getting Through Chaos with Faith and God’s Help

Joseph was suffering from a bad act that wasn't God's doing, but he was brought somewhere by God, stepping into it. And in Genesis 45, he's looking back and he says,God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God. He's telling his brothers, you know, it's nothing to do with you. God, he has made me a father to Pharaoh and lord of all his house and rule over all the land of Egypt. There was this way that God stepped into the mess and brought good out of bad. [00:07:21] (42 seconds)  #GodTurnsMessIntoBlessing

Sometimes we can't see the way to the other side of where we've got to go. But when we bring God into the equation, more things become possible than we dared hope for. So how do we bring God into the equation? Simple. We choose faith. We choose faith that he's with us and that he will act. He'll get us through the chaos into a new normal. [00:13:48] (31 seconds)  #ChooseFaithBelieve

The first thing we have to do is to choose to believe. A simple choice. You know, either God exists or he doesn't. And therefore we can choose to believe in him or not. Choose to believe that there is a God and then you know, from what he said in the Bible, that he's interested in you. He's interested in your predicament. Until we do that, we won't ever see that he's with us in our mess. It's a simple choice. [00:14:52] (34 seconds)  #SimpleChoiceBelieve

If you believe that God the Father loved the world so much that he sent his only son to die for us on the cross, to bleed for us, give his broken body for us. If you believe that, and you believe that he did it for you personally, then you're partway there. Jesus wants us to have life in all its fullness. That means quantity and quality. That means a good life and a long, well, eternal life. So that's it. Believe. Choose to believe and you're partway there. [00:15:25] (44 seconds)  #GodAtWorkEverywhere

So secondly, we can look for evidence of God at work in other people's lives. If we can see that he's worked in them, then we can see, well, he might work in mine. We can become more aware of how he works. And that's why it's helpful to read the Bible, to see the ways he interacts with people over millennia. But it's also helpful to hear testimonies of other people's miraculous assistants. [00:16:12] (33 seconds)  #TestimonyFromTrials

Sometimes God whispers to us, and so we have to perceive him in a way that is not obvious. Like I had to perceive him this week when I was deciding what to preach on. Sometimes you get that when you're reading the Bible, and a verse that you've seen before, suddenly it leaps out at you, and it answers a point that you're chewing over. Sometimes someone will say something to you, but that's God speaking to you through them. If you hear it with the ears of faith. [00:27:27] (33 seconds)  #HolySpiritPower

So the trick in all of it is to remember that at all times, in all places, God is with us. Sometimes we forget that. Even when we can't see it, he's working, isn't he? Sometimes we have to wait to see the answers of the situation. That's obviously when we look back, as Joseph did. He can say, yep, I went through the misery of 13 years of slavery and imprisonment, even being forgotten about by someone who got released from jail, but God was there. Sometimes you can't see it at the time. But at other times, there is miraculous provision, which you can see when you look with the eyes of faith. [00:28:02] (56 seconds)  #GodIsNotAMachine

God is not a vending machine. We don't put our prayers in the top and get our answer out the bottom. You know? If we could do that, he wouldn't be God, would he? He'd be just a machine. Sometimes he acts. Sometimes he waits and then acts. Sometimes he responds in a completely different way than we expect him to do. But he always, always cares. [00:30:59] (32 seconds)  #FaithTransformsLife