Is there purpose in all the busyness and chaos?

on Jul 16, 2026

Negative emotions abstract. Dreamstime/TCA

From the writings of the Rev. Billy Graham

Q: I’ve been a Christian for many years and have done a lot of volunteer work in my neighborhood and in other countries. I enjoy studying different cultures and seeing different places, but it seems all in vain – that there’s no purpose in all the busyness and chaos. Shouldn’t I be feeling a sense of satisfaction and God’s approval instead of chaos and disillusionment? – U.D.

A: There are many people today who write about human despair, depicting the pessimism of our time, and many of them throw up their hands and say, “There’s no answer to mankind’s dilemma.”

The trouble with our thinking today is the conception that God is a haphazard God with no set rules of life and salvation.

Ask the astronomer if God is a haphazard God. He or she will tell you that every star moves with precision in its celestial path. Ask the scientist if God is a haphazard God. She will tell you that His formulas and equations are fixed and that to ignore the laws of science would be a fool’s folly.

If the laws in the material realm are so fixed and exact, is it reasonable that God could afford to be haphazard in the spiritual realm, where eternal destinies of souls are at stake? Just as God has equations and rules in the material realm, God has equations and rules in the spiritual.

Thank God every day for His absolute divine order. Amid confusion, it brings hope and perfect peace. But we cannot just go through life and never read God’s Word or talk with Him through prayer, desiring to learn and do His will and grow in the things of God. Let the study of the Bible become central in your life – not just so you will know it, but that you will obey it.

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(This column is based on the words and writings of the late Rev. Billy Graham.)