The Beauty of Confusion

Life speeds by us. It doesn't wait for us to catch up, it doesn't care if we are covered in the dust it kicks up as it passes us by. We are whirlwinds of thoughts and emotions living in a whirlwind of activity. To many the purpose of our lives in this whirlwind is a mystery, and I must admit that sometimes I too get carried away by it. Decisions hang ominously over us, waiting for us to choose the path to our destiny. The smallest, most insignificant things combine to form a kaleidoscope of chaos that overwhelms our feeble hearts. Confusion characterizes many of our lives, the driving force behind what we do, or the reason we do nothing. Which will it be? Will you discover beauty in the chaos, joy in difficult decision making, and peace as you wait until the dust clears to take your next step, or will you allow it to pull you into the bleakness that many call "life"?

There is an eye in every storm. The center of the confusion where peace resides. Being there doesn't mean that a storm doesn't rage, it just means that we have found the place where confusion becomes beauty. From this vantage point we see the beauty and wonder of the hail because we aren't dodging golf-sized ice balls that threaten to knock us out. Here we can marvel at the might of the winds because there is no fear of being driven before them with no control of our own. The eye of the storm is where the horror of the cross becomes the glory of redemption, and where the whirlwind we call life becomes the life Jesus called abundant.

He is our eye of the storm, our beauty in the midst of confusion, our peace when chaos threatens to consume us. If no storm raged around us there would be no place of contrasting beauty, there would be no need for a haven of rest. The confusion in our lives makes Christ more glorious, for we can only appreciate His beauty when the whirlwind offers nothing to compare with it. Will we strive with our whole being to remain in the eye of the storm, following wherever it carries us? Or will we wilt in the dizzying whirlwind, and succumb to the awful power of the wind?

It isn't easy to remain in the eye of the storm. The whirlwind is constantly moving, the winds battering, waves crashing, clouds scuttling across the skies. We cannot make our home based on where the eye then resides, we must make our home in the eye itself. We move when it moves, we go where it goes. If we hold on to a location, or cling to an occupation, the eye of the storm will move on, and winds will hit us full force. Open your hands, let the eye of the storm carry you.

It is beautiful and awful, peaceful and powerful, gloriously blinding, and abundantly satisfying. The eye of the storm. The beauty of confusion. The only point in the whirlwind of life that won't spin you to oblivion. Find it in the cross, and never leave its shadow.

I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. -John 10:10