God is a God of order, not chaos. What is divine order? In a nutshell it is God’s order, being directed by God. It is God directing nature, and man, and the universe itself. Think of the old saying, “a place for everything and everything in its place.” When God directs us, we can rely on His direction to be perfect.

Give Him your finances, you’ll prosper; give Him your career, you’ll be fulfilled; give Him your relationships they will be beautiful. In order to have divine order in your life, all you have to do is lay your own life down. “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.”Matthew 10:39

As a new Christian I was introduced to divine order by Dot Touchstone, a friend’s mother from my old neighborhood. I vaguely knew she was a Christian. I ran into her in shortly after becoming a Christian myself.

After catching up on things, I told her about my spiritual journey and some of the chaos I was encountering. She explained the concept of divine order and how inviting God into every aspect of my life would set things in order.

Here are some interesting examples of God’s divine order from the Bible: When Jesus miraculously fed the 5000, isn’t it interesting that he had the disciples take up all the leftover bread and fish so none of it would go to waste. They collected 12 baskets full of food. God does not waste things. He does not discard anything useful. (Matthew 6:30-44)

Think of the parable of the 100 sheep. In the story, the good Shepard leaves his 99 sheep to find the one that was lost. Setting things back in order. (Luke 15:1-7)

As Dot explained it, God’s divine order could be accessed by the believer in prayer to set things out of order to rights, including finding lost things.

In one Old Testament story, Elisha’s school of prophets was building a new dwelling when one of the students had an accident with a borrowed axe. The axehead came off and fell into a nearby body of water. In distress the student went to Elisha and told the prophet. The prophet then prayed: God told him to touch the water with a stick and the axehead floated to the surface and was recovered. (2 King 6:1-7)

You might wonder why the prophet would bother God with something seemingly so trivial as a lost axehead. It seems like a small thing but it illustrates that there is no small or insignificant thing in God’s universe. What distresses you is important to Him, and like any good parent, He wants to help His children.

Dot told me that God really cares about things that we care about. If we were concerned about a lost thing He would help us find it. I was a young believer and I thought, “What do I have to lose? I’m willing to try it, why not?”

My first opportunity came shortly after my meeting with Dot. I was rooming with another young Christian man in a house in my hometown. A bill was coming due: I think it was the rent. I went to his room to get a check for his part, but he couldn’t find his checkbook. I told him about divine order and said we should pray. We did, and as I was praying for divine order in his room, I felt the Holy Spirit tell me the checkbook was behind my left shoulder. I turned around and saw a bookshelf. My roommate was studying for the CPA exam and had about 12 bound notebooks of study material on those shelves. I told Steve I felt like the Spirit was telling me that his checkbook was right there.

He looked all around the shelf but didn’t find the checkbook. We gave up after a few minutes, I was reluctant to search his room even with him there, because I valued his privacy. So I went back to my room and started to think about something else. However, the Holy Spirit interrupted me. He insisted that the checkbook was where He had indicated. So I had to go back into Steve’s room and told him. Steve had been a little bit skeptical, and I was a little abashed, but I knew this was important for both of us. God wanted to teach us both lesson.

So I pointed to the bookshelf again and said, “I know this sounds crazy but the Holy Spirit tells me it is right here.” I pointed to the CPA volumes on the bookshelf. Steve was sitting on his bed. All of a sudden his eyes got big and he rushed over to the shelf and picked a volume out of the middle of the row, opened it up, and there in the middle of the book was his checkbook! It was like a magic trick: we both just gaped at the checkbook. Wow.

Not long after that another amazing thing happened. I think we had both come back from Sunday evening service at church. It had been raining and it was dark. Steve had contact lenses (the old fashioned hard kind). As he walked from his car to the door of the house, one of them popped out and fell in the grass still wet from the rain.

He came in and told me what happened. I said,”Well, you know what to do.” He smiled and we prayed. He went out with a flashlight and 5 minutes later came back in triumphant!

You might think that was a small thing, finding a lost checkbook and a contact lense, but the implications were huge. I began applying the divine order principle to the rest of my life. Basically describing it like this: everything we put into God’s hands He will bless beyond our imagination; whether it is a small thing (like a lost item) or a large thing (like our career path and our intimate relationships).

Putting faith to work is no more complicated than dying to self, and turning your life over to His will. It may take a lifetime to turn everything over to God, but every time you turn over a new part of yourself to Him you will be encouraged to do more: because it works. Living an abundant life, ironically, is dying to self. Giving up control of every aspect of your life brings order out of chaos.

Jesus said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” John 10:10