TIETOJA TÄSTÄ JAKSOSTA
Love to hear from and know who is listening
I got married at a very young age and for all the wrong reasons. After 8 years my marriage failed. It was during this point in my life, I believe I developed OCD. My life seems to be in chaos, so I did everything I within my power to try and control that chaos. I had red and blue plates and those plates always had to be sorted by color. In my cabinets I sorted all the fruits into a section and all the vegetables into another section. I developed an odd affinity for even numbers. The volume control on the TV and radio had to be on an even number or at least a number that was a multiple of 5. None of this stuff really fixed the problems I was facing but it gave me and odd sense of control during a period of my life that seemed to be spinning out of control. One of my OCD habits that has stuck with me to this day some 30 years later is I alphabetize all the spices in my spice rack. My children, who are grown adults now, get a big kick out of messing up my OCD spice rack when they come to visit, just to see how long it will take dear old dad to notice. So my difficult, maybe even crazy question is this. Does God share my OCD? Is God a God of order?
1 Corinthians 14:33 CSB since God is not a God of disorder but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints.
Let me begin by making this perfectly clear, I don't believe God has a disorder like my OCD, however I do believe that He is a God of order. First Corinthians 14:33 is a rebuke of the Corinthian church. Their worship services were out of control, chaotic, and even offensive to unbelievers who visited. The book of first Corinthians is, in part, a letter outlining proper conduct in the worship of God. Paul bases the command for order in the church service on the fact that God Himself is a God of order, not chaos. Order implies a neat and logical organization of items, tasks, or people. When a room is in order, it has been tidied and everything is in its proper place. God’s universe is orderly. He created everything in an orderly sequence, in a six-day span, that set the world as we know it into motion. He created the sun, moon, and stars to regulate time and seasons and the heavenly bodies operate with precise predictability.
Psalm 104:19 ESV He made the moon to mark the seasons; the sun knows its time for setting.
God exists outside of time as we know it, but He created time as a way to mark change. Time is orderly, sequential, and does not vary based on anything mankind can control. Time keeps us orderly. Rich or poor, young or old, we all have the same number of hours in a day. The sun will rise and set on schedule no matter what may be happening on earth. Because God is a God of order, He keeps everything in motion as He first designed. It is His orderly hand that holds the world in place. God even holds together the smallest of pieces of creation, the atom, which is extremely small, around 100 pico-meters across. A human hair is about 1 million pico-meters wide. And we all know what happens with you split an atom, you get destructive power of an Atomic bomb.
Colossians 1:17 ESV And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Since God is a God of order, it makes sense that we appreciate order, too. This gives me a sense of peace, maybe my desire to put everything in order isn't so bad after all. God created us to think in orderly ways, to reason, judge, and consider all aspects of a matter. God enjoys our communion with Him, our questions, our studying of His Word, and our willingness to let Him bring order to our chaotic thoughts. The more like Him we become, the more orderly our lives will be because He is a God of order.
