The other day, I came across a TikTok video from a young woman in China. She explained that many in her country embrace strong government control because they grew up with stories of chaos, instability, and fear. For them, order feels like safety, and structure feels like life. America, on the other hand, was born out of a different story—not escaping chaos, but escaping control.
And I get it. Nobody likes chaos. It’s unsettling, unpredictable, and exhausting, which is why so many religions—and even governments—promise peace by offering strict systems of order. Do these steps. Obey these rules. Follow this authority. Submit to this process. Then you’ll finally be okay.
But here’s the truth: that promise never holds.
Chaos on Vacation
I felt this firsthand a few weeks ago. Kara and I had our first cruise booked in July—a five-year anniversary trip. Like any big trip, there was a process: passports, health checks, online check-in, and signing up for excursions. We followed their rules and their system, trusting that if we did everything right, the trip would go smoothly.
But then the email came: the cruise was delayed. Thousands of passengers, including us, scrambled to extend hotel stays. By the time we checked, prices had skyrocketed five times over. Then came the car rental mess, the extra meals, the endless ripple of expenses.
Still, we held out hope. One day later, another email landed in my inbox: the cruise was cancelled.
That’s when the real chaos began. Hotels were full. Flights were scrambled. People were stressed and angry. And I’ll be honest—I was frustrated too. I wanted the cruise line to fix it all, since they were the cause. But they couldn’t. At the end of the day, Kara and I had to figure out how to deal with our own chaos.
And that’s the point: no system—no cruise line, no government, no religion—can truly shield us from life’s storms. If you pin your hope on them, you’ll end up disappointed.
The Trap of Order
That’s why work-based religions feel so appealing. They promise to tame the chaos with rules and rituals. “Do more. Try harder. Earn peace.” It sounds good, but it ends up being another weight to carry.
The problem isn’t just that systems fail us. The problem is that they can never give us what we’re really looking for. Because what we crave isn’t actually order—it’s peace.
And peace doesn’t come from structure. Peace comes from Jesus.
The Same Trap in Religion
That’s the same trap I wrote about in Are You Good Enough?
We think if we can just stack up enough good works, obey enough rules, or live a clean enough life, then maybe we can settle the chaos inside.
But that’s just another system of order, and it will fail you the same way my cruise line did. It looks like salvation, but it’s really just salvation plus—Jesus plus rituals, Jesus plus works, Jesus plus my own effort.
The problem is: Jesus never said plus. He said Finished.
- “It is finished.” (John 19:30)
- “By grace you have been saved through faith… not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8–9)
The gospel is not a system for managing chaos. It’s the Savior who conquered sin and death, so you don’t have to.
The Lesson of Chaos
Jesus never promised to remove the chaos. He promised to walk with us through it.
- “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)
- “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.” (Psalm 23:4)
Maybe that’s the lesson of chaos. It strips away the illusion that we’re in control. Also, it exposes the limits of systems, governments, and religion. It leaves us face-to-face with our need for something deeper—Christ Himself.
Because in the end, peace isn’t found in escaping chaos. It’s found in knowing God is with us in it.
Closing Thought
That’s what I learned standing in a crowded hotel lobby with plans wrecked and expenses piling up. I could blame the cruise line all day long. But the reality was this: if my peace depends on someone else fixing the chaos, I’ll never have it.
The Bible says God is not a God of confusion but of peace. He is a God of order. But not the kind of order we try to manufacture through systems, works, or control. His order starts in the heart.
When we rest in Him, the chaos of life doesn’t magically disappear, but it loses its power to undo us. His Spirit brings a different kind of order—an anchor in the storm, a calm that isn’t tied to circumstances, a peace that goes deeper than control.
That’s also why every other gospel leaves you exhausted. They all promise peace if you do more, try harder, submit deeper. But Christianity is different. It doesn’t say, “Work your way out of chaos.” It says, “Christ worked for you, and His grace is enough.”
And when you rest in that, you find the kind of order no system can give—God’s peace in the middle of life’s storms.