God knows a way to work out all the mess for His glory - Saying that doesn't clean up the mess.

Sometimes our lives are just a mess.  Often, we did it to ourselves.  My house is a mess, but this isn't exactly the mess I’m talking about.  I’m talking about the mess of situations and relationships and emotions that we live in.  Our jobs, our families, our friends, our churches, our ministries and even our own skin.  Someone in the equation does something that causes a mess.  Usually it is a sin, but sometimes it isn't.  Something happens and the ball starts rolling downhill and we can’t seem to catch it, or we fall trying.

It could go like this.  So, I sin.  I am rude to my daughter.  She closes off her heart to me.  Now I am alone and feel abandoned.  So does she.  This is a mess…a very small one possibly, but with the potential for a continent splitting earthquake in relationship if we’re not careful.  God never wanted me to be rude to her.  That was sin in me.  In order for us to come back to relationship, both my daughter and I have to come back to Jesus and to each other and repent.  Turn away from the wrongs done on either part, forgive, and reconcile.  Sometimes this is easy and sometimes not so much.  At the end of the day, God is able take this mess I made and actually use it to create a sense of trust and a closeness that would not be there otherwise.  He is glorified by the work He does in our relationship.  This would be the preferred course of action.

Now, that’s pretty easy to say and fairly easy to get through the first time.  But if it goes on for years or if the reconciliation doesn't happen or if one of the people in the equation stops looking to God and doesn't care about the mess, you are alone to deal with it.  After you do all you can do, you cannot force the other person to reconcile with you. Often, it takes time before you can shake off your own wrong notions and live forgiveness.  Sometimes the consequences for sin, though confessed and forgiven in an instant, have long term ramifications. Now there is a more intense mess to deal with. 

However, God can be glorified in the mess.  It might not change the situation.  The relationship may still be estranged. The boss may still be difficult to deal with. The church leader might still rub you the wrong way.  However, as we learn to give up what we think we deserve, what we think God’s plan should be, and just trust Him because He is worth it and because we trust Him more than we trust ourselves to do what will bring Him glory….He will be glorified.  As we walk through the hard days of our mess and and we struggle with why God allows the hard things, and come to the place - by His grace -  where we trust anyway, He is glorified. When we tell the story of how He sustained us...how He delivered us and helped us through, He is glorified. And He most assuredly is able to see us through the mess.

Just in case, you might think that you must be strong to trust, please know that it is when we know we are weak that we most trust.  It is because of our close association with our need that we find our way back to God.  This reality allows us to trust…allows the earthen vessels we are to bring glory to the Lover of our souls….the King of the Universe.