Why is Life so Messy?

“You who say ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there…’ yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring…  Instead, you ought to say, ‘if the Lord wills we will live and do this or that.’”

James 4:13-16

Why does life sometimes get so messy?  None of us make decisions or begin a journey that leads us to problems.  But often our decisions and our ventures will go a different way than we intended.  If we take the time to analyze our lives, they often are filled with left turns that lead us into messes and problems we never expected to come our way.

Most of us have wires and extension cords that we often store in a box.  We may wrap them up in a nice neat way, but then within several months of needing one of those wires for a connection, we go to retrieve it only to find a gnarly group of wires that have to be detangled before we can use them.  That is the way life often goes. 

I like the way the Apostle James addresses the root of the problem in his letter, James 4:13-16, “You who say ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there…’ yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring…  Instead, you ought to say, ‘if the Lord wills we will live and do this or that.’”   James is putting his finger on a problem that is common to all of us, we often make our plans without God at the center of them.

Here is the difference between a life that puts God at the center and self at the center.  When we put ourselves at the center and life takes a left turn we are often angry at ourselves for failure, at God for allowing the mess, or upset at the person who may have contributed to the problem. 

But when we put God at the center, instead of anger, there is a sense of peace and joy in the journey of what God can do through the tangled bundle of wires—that through Him we can find a way forward, despite the appearance of things.

So let us invite God in and remember He is a God who promises, “For those who love God all things work together for the good, for those called according to His purpose.”  (Rom 8:28)    That is the beauty of a God-led life, it is not one without problems and messes it is a life that has peace and joy, despite the problems and messes.