The Math Behind the Waves: God's Order in This Seemingly Chaotic Life
July 2025
[Adapted from the newsletter of an Encompass missionary who has waited an unusually long time to receive their visa renewal.]
Anxious and antsy, I put my morning chores on pause to go for a walk. A quiet voice urged, "I made the morning for you to walk," so I headed for the water, a 10-minute walk from one of the world's most famous straits. This panoramic view of the ancient city, sprawling across two continents, offers a literal and metaphorical breath of fresh air, putting my life in perspective. Lately, my life has felt paralyzing, a cycle of planning and waiting. But as I walked, my thoughts tumbled around, bouncing off the external world. As I walked, I came to a spot where the walkway juts out into the water. The water here is typically rough, but today, the windy conditions made the waves especially substantial. Waves from the open water reflected off the walkway, creating a jumbled, familiar mess—like waves colliding in a science class slinky experiment. Any rhythm and shape that waves typically have were completely lost. Watching the sporadic waves, a voice whispered, "It may not be even, but it's not chaotic—not random. There is math for all those waves interacting, and your life right now is like those waves. You are not a big, beautiful surfing wave, but you aren't in chaos either. I've done the math. I know what's happening." My jaw dropped. What I had been perceiving as chaos in my life actually isn’t; I'm just too unknowing to see it. Thankfully, I don't need to understand the complex math of how waves interfere with each other. I can just rest, knowing that the world operates on principles too big for me to grasp. But God knows. He created the math, and the order behind the universe. What seems like chaos to me still fits into God's good order—even when I feel tossed around. So, I will rest, float, and be pushed, pulled, or even just bounce around, knowing I am not lost or forgotten by the Creator. He is in control.
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