Beautiful Disruptions

By C.J, Cutrone

“Why are You allowing this, God?” Storms or valleys of life may prompt this question in our hearts. There are times when life seems like a mess. Yet some disruptions in our lives are not problems we need God to solve, but winds that God Himself sends. These challenges can in fact be Beautiful Disruptions, when God is doing something that will become wonderful in us.
When we go through trials and challenges of life, it’s critical that we discern the source of the wind. Understanding that some disruptions in life are from God, not the devil, helps us to know how to pray and how to receive. If it is an attack, we stand in Christ and fight. But if it is God, we surrender and rest in Him. The way we see things changes everything.
God intends to show us more about Himself and more about ourselves. When He reveals, He loves and heals. He brings death to things harmful to us so that we can fully receive His life. His desire is to bring us into a place of peace, intimacy, and strength.
These disruptions are beautiful, and in the midst of them, when we see it as He does, we no longer ask, “God, how can You do this?” Instead we learn to say, “God, I praise you for what You are doing.” Growing in this helps us to receive countless truths and commands in God’s Word. Here we understand the cross, fruit, abiding, and resting in Christ. Here we surrender and grow in Him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C.J, Cutrone
• Release date: Aug 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9781945976735

Book preview

Chapter One

Beautiful Disruption

Changing times, news we don’t like, stormy winds blowing in our lives—is it miserable and demonic or life and a blessing of God? So many times in these situations we ask, God, what is happening? Why are You allowing this? And we don’t see with faith but with fear and fatigue. We can feel so beaten up and tired, even feel like a failure, for not having more faith. But God has not called us to fear or misery. He in fact has a plan, a good plan, a plan full of grace and the love of Jesus Christ.

Often the way we see the situation determines if we walk in victory or defeat. Understanding that some disruptions in life are from God, not the devil, helps us to know when to fight and when to surrender, when to stand firm and when to rest. There is no peace or victory in fighting God. But what a victory we attain when we trust God in a storm we know is from Him.

At a very challenging time in my life, and our ministry, I was hurting and confused. We were in the middle of building an orphanage, and everything started falling apart. Business troubles, ministry setbacks, and physical attacks. I found myself asking God, Father, did you forget about the orphanage and the children who need a place to live?

God, through His grace, opened my eyes to a truth that changed everything as I read Matthew Chapter 8:28–34. Over a period of months, this truth unfolded through the work of the Holy Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ and His precious Word. (In this and in all other biblical quotes, my emphasis will be in italics. Quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from the NASB.)

When He came to the other side into the country of the Gadarenes, two men who were demon-possessed met Him as they were coming out of the tombs. They were so extremely violent that no one could pass by that way. And they cried out, saying, What business do we have with each other, Son of God? Have You come here to torment us before the time?

Now there was a herd of many swine feeding at a distance from them. The demons began to entreat Him, saying, If You are going to cast us out, send us into the herd of swine.

And He said to them, Go! And they came out and went into the swine, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and perished in the waters. The herdsmen ran away, and went to the city and reported everything, including what had happened to the demoniacs. And behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus; and when they saw Him, they implored Him to leave their region.

Seeing what happened as Jesus came to the Gadarenes and the people’s response of, Jesus, we do not like what you are doing here; please leave, I was stunned with revelation and found myself in holy awe.

So what happened? Jesus stepped out of the boat, and everything was turned upside down; two demon-possessed men were delivered, and the manifestation of that spiritual work was seen as the herd of swine ran into the sea. This marvelous—and economically catastrophic—work of God was told the city. It didn’t matter that these men were free, the road they could not travel on was clear, and the miracle-working Son of God was there to do the works of God. Their response was, Please leave.

The Gospel of Mark goes on to say the people saw the man who had previously been possessed clothed and sitting, in his right mind. It also says over 2,000 swine drowned in the sea. The healed man was great, but the loss of their pigs scared them to death. So they asked Jesus to leave. How we see things determines everything.

In reading this account, the term came to me as I pondered what happened:

Beautiful Disruption!

Jesus came in and disrupted their lives, and it was beautiful. But they asked Him to leave. I sat and cried as the realization dawned that everything going on in my life, everything I was frustrated about, even the threat of loss, was in fact from God. And God was in the midst of a beautiful disruption.

Now in this season, I came to an entirely new level of faith in trusting God. Not trusting God to work out my will, nor believing Him for a particularly good thing that I may like, but just trusting God—even if the trials were for no other reason than God to receive glory. I thought I had learned the lesson God had for me. But I did not fully embrace all that God wanted. I did not see what was going on as something God caused, I saw it as a problem God could solve. Understanding the difference changed everything.

As I said, in the weeks that followed, this truth was deepened in a way I had no idea could ever happen. Praise God, who can stoop so low to spend so much time with His little child and by His grace lift him up. Seeing and talking to others, being moved by the Holy Spirit for God’s people to understand this principle, walking in this victory, and giving God glory compels me to write and speak this message. In all the years of sharing with God’s people, I have never before seen the kind of impact this has had on so many. My prayer is that, by the grace of God, your eyes may see, your heart may be refreshed, and God may get glory from your reading this book. It may even answer the question many have asked, Why do I need Jesus?

Chapter Two

Beautiful Disruption Principles

We must understand the principles of God-caused or God-allowed disruptions to our lives. But before we discuss them, we must see three points in Matt. 8:28–34.

Because the people of the Gadara area did not understand this was a God-caused event, they missed everything else God intended to do there. Perhaps it was fear of the unknown, fear of more lost pigs, or some other reason we may never know. But one thing is clear, in the gospel of Luke it says, because they were gripped with fear . . . (Luke 8:37) they did not like the disruption of God, they asked Jesus to leave, and He did. Oh my, we must be cautious here to understand the danger of fighting God when it is Him at work causing things in our lives. Woe to us if our hearts ask Him to leave.

In order for us to accept and see the principles of a beautiful disruption, we need to understand the following.

Not all disruptions in life are attacks, demonic, or even a problem. Change, even uncomfortable change, is not always bad.

When God comes in to disrupt, it is beautiful and good.

How we respond matters. The principles following are so important that I have difficulty expressing them. It is knowing and accepting these truths that changes life. We will go through many scriptures to support them and to see how God applies them to our lives. Usually, all three of the following principles are present in every biblical example.

Principles of the Beautiful Disruption

The first principle is that in the disruption, God is doing something to reveal His nature, His heart, His power, and His worthiness. God is revealing to us something about Himself that He can and will use in us and in the building of His kingdom. There are some things that are so magnificent that they can only be shown, believed and understood, yes, even embraced in the disruption. But we want to observe Jesus from a mountaintop, as we sit in a nice chair with a warm cup of coffee in our hands. For certain, some lessons are learned sitting back and just looking unto Jesus, but others only come in a valley, and still others only come when God messes up our status quo. God will get our attention. He will do what He needs to do to reach us despite all our busyness and giving our attention and affections to other things. God will not share His glory. In Christ He alone paid the price. Have you said, I believe and belong to you, Jesus? Then know He can and will do as He pleases, and it is good. To think that God wants to be so engaged with us and wants to show us Himself is so incredible.

The second principle is that God uses these disruptions to reveal something in us to us. In the trial, the situation, the change, with all its emotions and tests, God shows us something He sees in us that we need to see as well. Is it a lack of faith, or perhaps great faith, or a wrong direction, or even an entirely false belief in His will? God can use these disruptions to reveal something He wants to change, strengthen or correct, but He needs us to see it as He does. This is the pruning that makes the tree become more fruitful (John 15:2).

The third principle, and one that in and of itself should be all we need, is that God is working something out according to His plan and purpose. There is a reason and a need God is doing what He is doing. We may or may not ever see it. As we will see, it may be years or even generations before it unfolds. Here is where I say, if we do not know the value in participating in God’s plan for the sole purpose of it being God’s will, with no seeming benefit to us, then we will never obtain this great victory.

We can find many other lessons and truths in this study of the Scriptures and the wonderful stories in the Word of God; however, most are inclusive in the above three.

Chapter Three

Lord Save Us, We Perish

We find our first example from the scene immediately before Jesus and the apostles came to the Gadarenes. What was going on? Things were good; Jesus was doing miracles; people loved Him. The centurion had, and declared, a faith that caused even Jesus to marvel, Peter’s mother-in-law and many others were healed, the four men led their friend through the roof, the blind were made to see, and people were following Jesus. In the midst of this glorious time, Jesus and His disciples got into a boat, as Jesus said, Let us go to the other side of the lake (Luke 8:22). Then something amazing happened. In this, we must remember it was Jesus who said, Let us go. They left a wonderful season in the ministry and headed out under the direction of the Lord Jesus Himself, who did nothing He did not hear the Father say to do. One hundred percent, there are two things we know; God knew what was about to happen, and it was His will. In Matthew 8 we read:

Now when Jesus saw a crowd around Him, He gave orders to depart to the other side of the sea . . .

When He got into the boat, His disciples followed Him. And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being covered with the waves; but Jesus Himself was asleep. And they came to Him and woke Him, saying, Save us, Lord; we are perishing!

He said to them, Why are you afraid, you men of little faith? Then He got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and it became perfectly calm.

The men were amazed, and said, What kind of a man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?

A beautiful disruption. From a glorious time to Lord, we are perishing. Do we see that this change was the will and work of God? Yes, this was God’s doing. But why? I will not presume to know everything in the mind of God, but one thing I am confident of is that the disciples desperately needed the general principles found here. And as they are written to us, they are also for our benefit. Remember the first two principles.

1. God is revealing something about Himself to us.

2. God is revealing something to us about us.

During the storm as they cried out to Jesus in fear, what was God’s response? He stood up and rebuked the wind and the waves, and they calmed. And what was the result of this act of God? What kind of a man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him? Now the disciples had been witnesses to something never before seen among mankind. The miracles, the healings, and the wisdom pouring out of Jesus. You would think that their faith had to be enormous. But here we see that God brought them to another place of utter amazement. Who is this man? God, amid the stormy distraction, revealed Himself in a way they simply could not have seen before.

Also we see God revealing something to the disciples about themselves. Again these men were walking with Jesus, witnessing the miracles, and believing Him to be worth leaving everything for. To some degree, they understood who He was. In John 1:49 Nathanael said, You are the Son of God, the King of Israel. But there was so much more Jesus wanted them to see. During the God-ordered disruption, despite all they saw and believed, God showed them their faith was lacking. So much so, they were rebuked for their lack of faith. In fact, one of the most serious of all thoughts in a child’s heart toward his father came out here. Mark adds to the account of Matthew the following statement: Teacher, do you not care . . . ? Jesus already knew what was in their hearts, but this event caused the question, which was a problem in their heart, to be revealed. Jesus, do you not care? How many times have we asked such a thing? Jesus, if you love me, then why? Oh, what treachery that we would ask the One who died for us such a thing. But this is what God wants to bring out so that we can allow Him in to heal, grow faith, and trust.

God is not offended when He brings junk out.

He already knows it is there.

And yes, He loves us anyway.

He brings it out so that you and I can see what He sees. Praise Him. We must be at a place where, despite the storm, we know we can trust Him who did not withhold His own Son. This is how the boat can rock, but the child is secure and asleep with Jesus. If I am in His arms in the boat, whatever happens, it is good. Amen.

There is one more thing going on here that reveals a truth that God is working in our lives, and it is so very interesting.

If there was anything these uneducated men knew, it was the water. They lived in boats. At times they were on the water all night (Luke 5:5). Of all the things they may have trusted in their natural strength and abilities, it was themselves on the water. The irony is powerful. We see that their great strength was not enough. Like all beautiful disruptions we see another truth: God will bring you to the end of yourself. God will bring you to a place of revealing you are not able, and total desperation for Him is all you have. This point is the end of your success and efforts and the beginning of Him and Him alone. That place of death to self is the place of the life of God, where we cry, Lord, save us! What do we see from this one case? Who is this man? We see the disciples’ lack of faith and their learning what it is to depend on Jesus Christ completely. So while this experience for the disciples was scary and less pleasant than the miracles and glory that went on before, we can see how valuable this experience was. We see the work that was done in them through it all. Would we not agree, if this is something that God wants to do in us, then it is indeed a beautiful thing? Can anyone say it is better to live and fight in your own power than it is to let go and trust God completely? Sometimes the storm is the only way we let go and learn.

Chapter Four

We Cry Out, God Answers,

We Complain

Israel, after hundreds of years of bondage in Egypt, was heard by God. The Bible says, He saw Israel’s affliction and gave heed to their cry (Exod. 3:7). God came in power, judged Egypt, and set His people free. But Israel had a different plan on how God should have worked things out. This is clear from their constant complaining. God was causing a beautiful disruption in their lives. And in the midst of it all, we can see so much of God revealing Himself to His people.

God parted the Red Sea,