Stuck in the Cycle of the Chaos Bubble

When worrying gets the best of you and starting down the road to peace.

I recently learned I had been walking in worry, but I didn’t realize I had been stuck in this cycle of chaos. I was stuck in the chaos bubble. I thought I was believing God. However, I believed Him with just my words, and it wasn’t translating into a peace that passed all understanding. I was saying I believed God, but there was chaos still on the inside. It was like my mind agreed with the Word, but my experience lacked alignment.

Have you been stuck in the chaos bubble, too?

Have you let worry run areas of your life? Perhaps, like me, you hadn't even realized it. 

You’re going through life, and then something happens that throws you off kilter, off course, and into the chaos bubble. It might look like things are put together on the outside, but on the inside it’s chaotic. You’ve got thoughts that are running out of control. You suddenly find yourself having thought about one thing for way too long that you didn’t want to think about, and you don’t know how to get out of the chaos.

You didn't want it to be that way. It just was.

You were stuck in the chaos bubble, didn't know it, but now it's coming to the light.

I hadn’t written for a while, but I felt like I needed to share this one.

What happens when you get stuck in the cycle of the internal chaos bubble, and is there a way out?

It starts with a belief system.

This could be hard to hear, but the understanding makes all the difference. There is a difference between saying I believe something and believing it. If I believed it, there would be a real difference in the outcomes. If I say I don’t worry, but my insides are full of chaos then it stands to reason that I don’t yet believe that peace and freedom from worry is for me.

It's like saying I believe the chair will hold me if asked to sit in, but I never actually sit in the chair. I never actually allow the chair to hold me up.

So what’s the difference between words and sitting in the truth?

It’s an experiential difference.

It’s a difference that I think you only really know once you’ve entered into it.

You can say you believe the chair will hold you, but until you sit in it, you'll never really know.

Once you finally sit in the chair, you cross the threshold and enter into the place of peace. When you enter the place of peace despite your circumstances, that’s when you know that you know. That's when you really know because you've actually gone and sat into the place of peace that you can trust, believe, and rest in.

Realization of the chaos bubble

Once I realized I was stuck in this cycle of worry, and I hadn't really become a person who believed peace was for me. I realized I needed to change, but I didn't really know how to change. I had been saying the right things and saying I believed the right things, but I wasn't see the difference. I needed to act, but I didn’t need to let my mind run in circles. It was almost a harassment of thoughts. I didn’t have any control. Suddenly my thinking would get overrun, and I’d find myself having gone into a chaos bubble. Then once I realized my thinking had gotten stuck in the loop of the chaos bubble, it was almost like waking up out of a slumber.

It was like I had been shaken.

I said to myself, "Brian, you've been stuck in this loop. You didn't realize it earlier, but here you are now. Now you realize it. So what's next?"

What could I do to get out of the chaos bubble?

Then it hit me as I was leaving my house one day, what if I imagined I was a person who didn't worry or experience the internal chaos?

I said to myself, how would someone in this circumstance who didn’t worry react in this circumstance? What would their internal life be like? How would someone who really believed God act, react, and internalize the promises of God in this time and place?

I imagined that I was that person, and it was like a switch took place. Suddenly the peace that had escaped me made itself present. The chaos made itself quiet. I was able to think, see, and hear more clearly.

I was able to reflect and remind myself in the peace of the Lord to see that the Lord had always taken care of me in the past circumstances. If He's done it before, He will do it again. Why should I be worrying?

I had exited the chaos bubble.

You might think it was just superficial because I had imagined it, but I think it's deeper. I think I was finally just entering the truth of the Word of God, sitting in the chair, and resting in His promise of peace. There was a tangible difference.

Oftentimes we are waiting for the promises of God to become reality in our lives, when the promises of God are already yes and amen. They are already things He's paid for. So when we're not believing God, we are thinking that there are things we need to do and strive for and so we never actually enter into His rest and peace because we believe it is something far off instead of right here with us now in the present.

God's promises are not far off but near. He is not far off but near. His promises aren't for tomorrow but for today.

Is there a way out of the chaos bubble for everyone?

If the experience above describes you, and you've been caught up in the worry of the chaos bubble, then I want you to know there is a way out. There is a way of escape from the chaos thoughts and harassment that’s attacking you.

Know that you are loved by Jesus. He hasn’t left you alone in this time. You might feel like He’s left you because your thoughts run wild, but what’s really happening is a revelation that there are places in your life that need additional growth in trusting Him. There are places in your life that need additional growth in believing God. The way you’ve been believing hasn’t been working because it has been deficient. Unfortunately, if it wasn't deficient, it would be working.

The good news is that the circumstances have revealed this, and God is gracious, merciful, and powerful enough to use what the enemy meant for evil and turn it for your good to become a mature son of God.

So acknowledge that the path you've been going down hasn't been working, and that you're believing has been deficient. That's okay, because now is the time for change. The kindness of God leads us to repentance, to mind change, and we’ve got to allow the Lord to move us into a place of fully believing Him.

Begin by remembering all the times and places that He has not let you down in the past. Then remember that He’s done it once before, He won’t leave you this time. If you don't feel like or can't remember times and places God has not let you down, then imagine yourself as someone who has experiences like that. See the stories in other people's lives and those of the Bible to see that God is someone who won't leave or abandon you and that He is someone who will come through for you. He is trustworthy.

Then imagine yourself as a person who doesn’t worry, doesn’t fret, and is fully free. Imagine that the promises of God are right now yes and amen in your life. Imagine that the things that Jesus has already paid for in your life are true, and are not things that you're waiting for. Imagine that when He says He's come to set the captives free you're one of those captives who has been set free. How would that person who has been set free be living and thinking right now?

Now you might say to yourself, Brian, isn’t that just wishful thinking? Isn’t that just lying to yourself? Like this situation I'm in right now is really going on, it's not fun, and it really hurts me on all the levels.

But here’s the kicker. A lot of us are hoping and believing that one day God will set us free, and one day we will be in heaven where everything is better, but God wants to get heaven into you. God wants you to realize that He’s already finished the work, He’s just bringing it to completion within you.

Said another way, He’s already paid for you, already made you the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, already given you His heart, His mind, and all of Him. You’re literally filled with the Spirit of the living God.

Does God lack anything? No.

Is God worrying? No.

Is God in you. Yes.

So why would we worry? We shouldn't.

Why would be stay in the chaos bubble? We don't have to.

But it's hard.... I know. Boy, do I know.

And, I can say all these things. But there is a place where it isn’t just words. There is a place where you come into actually experiencing that place of peace from the chaos bubble yourself. Where you fully believe the promises of God, and they aren’t just for tomorrow, but they are for today, for now, for the very present moment.

When peace becomes more than just words.

Finally, I’ve now seen a difference experientially between just saying I believe something with my words to actually seeing that belief play out into reality. I want to encourage you that if you’re stuck inside the internal chaos bubble of worry, then turn your eyes to Jesus, find the difference between empty words and substantive belief, and you’ll find that you can live in a place that reality actually looks like the promises of God.

I wish I was able to write better and more clearly and had more eloquent words to help give better guidance, but for now, just to get you started, I hope you're encouraged to know there is hope for you to come out of the chaos bubble and into the peace of God. There is hope to have a mind, heart, and body filled with the peace that only He can give.

Be blessed. Be filled with hope. Be filled with peace. Jesus loves you.