Unscrambling Eggs

by Pete Johnson on February 11, 2021

I love eggs. I especially love fried eggs, particularly ones with a warm runny yolk. My wife on occasion will make fried egg sandwiches. These culinary delights are constructed by toasting two pieces of bread in a cast-iron skillet with butter, frying up some bacon, then cooking two eggs over easy. The eggs are then placed on the top side of the bottom piece of the toasted bread (this is a key step!). The bacon is then laid across the eggs, and the last step is to place the top piece of the toasted bread, bottom side down, (another integral step) over the bacon and eggs. A well done fried egg sandwich, served up with grits, is a Southern delicacy beyond compare. Suitable for any meal of the day.

Then there are scrambled eggs. Crack 'em, throw them into the pan, stir them up, and dump them onto your plate. They are Ok, but not what I would prefer. I remember times as a young boy, if my mother was in a hurry she would just scramble eggs for everyone. Blah! Once an egg is scrambled, that’s it. It is very rare to have scrambled eggs that are silky smooth and the taste is nowhere near a fried egg. It would have been a useless endeavor to have taken my plate with a spoonful of scrambled eggs to my mother and ask “Could you please unscramble my eggs?” Scrambled eggs can’t be unscrambled…right?

Our lives are sometimes like this. Our eggs get scrambled and we were not the ones who scrambled it, nor did we ask for “scrambled eggs”!

It is humanly impossible to unscramble eggs. However, regarding life, concerning what is going on in the world, we serve a God who most certainly can “unscramble eggs”. But he may even give you an uncanny appreciation for scrambled eggs. (see my blog, “When life gives you lemons…”)

In Jeremiah 32, the nation of Israel is on the brink of destruction by the Chaldeans, the city of Jerusalem was about to be “scrambled”. God instructs the prophet Jeremiah to purchase a plot of land and get witnesses, as was required by law, to prove that the purchase was legitimate.

What’s the purpose of buying something that will either be destroyed or taken?

Behold, the siege mounds have come up to the city to take it, and because of sword and famine and pestilence the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans who are fighting against it. What you spoke has come to pass, and behold, you see it. Yet you, O Lord GOD, have said to me, “Buy the field for money and get witnesses”—though the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans.’” The word of the LORD came to Jeremiah: “Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?  (Jeremiah 32:24-27)

This buying of the land by Jeremiah was a symbol of a future and a hope for the nation of Israel.  Even though the “egg was soon to be scrambled”, God back in Jeremiah 29:11 had said,

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare  and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

In fact, the nation returned to the land 70 years later. God brought them back, He “unscrambled eggs”, in a way no one would have thought possible, had it not been prophesied before it even happened. He accomplished this through the foreign king Cyrus.

“In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing:  “Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah.  Whoever is among you of all his people, may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and rebuild the house of the Lord, the God of Israel—he is the God who is in Jerusalem.  And let each survivor, in whatever place he sojourns, be assisted by the men of his place with silver and gold, with goods and with beasts, besides freewill offerings for the house of God that is in Jerusalem.” Then rose up the heads of the fathers’ houses of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and the Levites, everyone whose spirit God had stirred to go up to rebuild the house of the Lord that is in Jerusalem.”  (Ezra 1:1-5)

God knows what’s going on in your life and what is happening in this present world. There are times that we “scramble our eggs”, and there are times when He scrambles them for us. Hoping in man to “unscramble” the “scrambled”, is as useless an endeavor as asking my mother to unscramble my eggs.

Two sections of scripture are anchors for our souls when our “eggs get scrambled”:

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)

Then a larger section: Lamentations 3, written by the prophet Jeremiah after Jerusalem was “scrambled”. I encourage you to read this passage. But I want to emphasize in this blog Jeremiah 3:21-24:

But this I call to mind,
    and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,
    his mercies never come to an end;
 they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.
 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
    “therefore I will hope in him.”
 

Today, place your hope in the God that can unscramble eggs! Our God makes the unredeemable redeemable, He mends the broken-hearted, there is plan and purpose in all that He does, and nothing is too hard for Him.

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. (1 Peter 5:10)

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