Thanking God for the Gift of “Order”
“…For God is not a God of
disorder but of peace.”*
“Did you rake up
the pinecones?” Al asked one day when we were both working in the back yard. He
pointed to a rather large, tidy pile of green cones next to our back fence.
Funny, that’s the same question I was going to ask him! They had been scattered
all over the yard… so, who or what piled them up?
Then another mysterious happening occurred one
night: the whole pile of cones was moved from our side of the fence to the
neighbors’ side! They had been somehow moved through the chain link fence where
they were stacked in another orderly pile, most likely by our resident
squirrels.
After an uplifting and relatively calm day on
Sunday, we were awakened at 4:00 a.m. by frantic barking from the back room
where TJ the lab sleeps. Neither Al nor I got up though, hoping that he was
having a bad dream and would go back to sleep.
Now TJ usually
sleeps through the night. In fact, it seems like he sleeps most of the day too!
Occasionally he has had a dream where he whimpers and lets out muffled barks,
and his legs jerk as though he is running, either chasing something or running
away from it.
This time though
it sounded less like dreaming and more like a warning, letting us know that
something was amiss. The barking continued, building up in intensity instead of
dying down. Whatever or whoever was outside the house wasn’t being scared away.
I put on my slippers and hurried down the hall
to find TJ standing in his room facing the backyard, very alert. A quick check
out the window didn’t show anything, even with the outside light flipped on.
After saying “No more barking!” authoritatively, I turned off the outside light
and went back to bed.
A few minutes
later, it started up again. I tried
shining the flashlight out all of the windows in the room, not wanting to go
outside in my slippers and pajamas. The flashlight didn’t help much though. It only
made a reflection on the glass that prevented me from seeing anything at all.
“TJ, no barking!
Not scary.” I repeated over and over. He finally curled up on his bed. Before
heading back to our bedroom, I covered him from head to toe with one of Al’s
old t- shirts, hoping that would do the trick. Either that was the secret or
the culprits went somewhere else, because that was the end of TJ’s barking.
Perhaps the commotion
was caused by squirrels digging around for more pinecones or other tidbits.
Thankfully, I went right back to sleep and didn’t wake up again until 10:00
a.m.
When
I finally got up, the day was already in full swing and I was at least two
hours behind schedule. There were several things requiring my attention all at
the same time. Besides having breakfast ready, Al had thoughtfully already taken
care of TJ’s needs. That was nice, as well as a big help!
The house was in
disarray, kitchen chores were calling and my precious early morning hours
reading the Bible and praying had disappeared. In addition to making a grocery
list before going shopping, there was also an alert from a friend that someone
had most likely hacked into one of our online accounts.
Confusion set in. It was a typical,
unpredictable Monday! And I wasn’t prepared for it, even after a restful
Sunday! When I finally was able to sit down for a bit of quiet time, the first
thing that came to mind was to thank God for the gift of “order.”
Order? A scripture
immediately popped into my head, something to the effect that God is not the
God of confusion, but of order and peace! Jesus addressed this same idea with
His disciples many times… “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his
life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the
rest?” (Luke 12:25)
There was no need
to worry. It certainly wouldn’t add minutes to the day. God would help me
figure things out when I turned everything over to Him.
Sure enough, with Al’s help and the Lord’s
orchestration too, everything fell into place. There were no feelings of confusion,
anxiety or of being worn out—only peace and gratitude. God is faithful!
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