The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.
Genesis 6:5 (NIV)

Yesterday was a long day, but a very good day. I spent eight hours in the car with a member of my company’s Board of Directors. We drove to Minneapolis for our first in-person Board gathering since January of 2020. It also afforded me and the Board our first face-to-face meeting with a new member of our team. My colleague and I then drove back. It was a festive occasion in which I, as leader of our company, tried to make sure that the joy of being physically together and the opportunity to eat, drink, and share life in one-another’s presence took precedence over the less important, though seemingly more urgent, aspects of business.

“There is a time for every purpose under heaven,” the Sage of Ecclesiastes said. The purpose for this day was to bask for a moment in togetherness and enjoy the ever-living heck out of it.

It was only natural that our free, open, and meandering conversations led to discussions of the current landscape of life on earth. Observations and contemplation flowed around current events, corporate issues, COVID issues, supply chain issues, political issues, and tech issues. I’m personally grateful to have arrived home late last night to report to Wendy that the spirit of love, contemplation, and gratitude brought me home with a full soul despite the weariness of body.

Yesterday’s conversations, however, came to mind as I read this morning’s chapter. The landscape of life, my team members and I discussed, is full of chaos that has us all shaking our heads with both wonder and perplexity.

Yet this is why I love my chapter-a-day journey and my daily contemplation of the Great Story and the flow of eternity. It provides much needed perspective for the acute anxieties of the current moment.

Today’s chapter is the beginning of the four chapters which contain the story of Noah. We’re just five chapters in from the very beginning and just two chapters from the order and goodness of the Garden. How quickly everything has descended into chaos.

This is the first of a recurring cycle of life outside the Garden, “east of Eden,” and the inaugural appearance of a theme that perpetually reoccurs throughout the Great Story, and also my life journey:

Order —-> Chaos —–> Reorder

A marriage typically starts with a well-ordered wedding and honeymoon phase which then leads to the chaos of two very different individuals who are motivated in different ways learning how to reorder their world together. Families start as a relatively stable nuclear family system and can quickly become chaotically disordered by conflict, financial stress, infidelity, a rebellious child, a tragic loss. Sometimes the system is able to find reorder and remain intact. Other times the system splits and finds reorder in the creation of new systems. Businesses launch with an orderly business plan and bright hope for success only to flow into the chaos of competing interests, personality conflicts, and the disruptions of the marketplace that force restructure, reorganization, and renewed vision. Times of relative peace and stability fall into the chaos of societal change, international conflict, and the disruptions of war, drought, famine, disaster, pandemic, or revolution, only to eventually find their way to the next season of relative peace and order.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself encouraged by the simple pleasure of being face-to-face with my beloved colleagues in the same conference room and around the same lunch table. I’m also encouraged by the reminder of this grand macro-level theme of the Great Story. Order, chaos, reorder, is the natural flow of life on earth between the fall of humanity in Genesis chapter three and the new creation of the last two chapters of Revelation. I find that digesting the reality of this theme into my conscience helps me remember, in times of chaos, that the flow of life from order to chaos is a part of life’s reality on this earth, but reorder is a part of that flow as well and it will eventually follow even if it doesn’t look perfectly the way I desire.

On a more micro level, long days on the road for business are always a bit chaotic. I’m grateful to re-enter the reorder of a normal day in the office.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.