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| Series Theme: Short Meditations on Peace | |
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Short Meditations on Peace 1. Peace?
Col 1:2 To the holy and faithful brothers in Christ in Colosse: Grace and peace to you from God our Father
I recently started a series of ‘short meditations' in Colossians 1 and when I got to the word ‘peace' in verse 2, I became stuck. It was not that I had nothing to write but whatever I wrote seemed inadequate. There needed to be something more. After a while of this happening I concluded I should take them out of that series and create a separate short series tackling this subject alone, so here we go.
Why should peace be one of the things that Paul wants for each church that he writes to because in virtually every letter he writes, he asks for peace for his readers at the beginning? What is so important about peace that he wants it again and again for his readers?
Perhaps the preliminary question should be, what is peace? My initial thought is that it is a state of ease of mind, of tranquillity, of absence of stress, absence of worry and so on. Immediately that starts providing food for thought for why, I believe, peace is such a rare commodity, and that includes in the lives of Christians, in life today. But I am aware that it is more than that. One of the footnotes in my study Bible says, “Peace is not just the absence of conflict but echoes the Old Testament concept of ‘shalom' when a person's life with God and with everything else is in ordered harmony, both physically and spiritually and ‘all is well' “
In Romans it comes to us as, ”Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Rom 1:7b) Now I have always thought that ‘grace' includes all of God's resources that are available to us because of the work of Jesus on the Cross, and ministered to us by the Holy Spirit, and that should thus include peace, but Paul sees it as something so important that he separates it from grace and, to the Romans at least, emphasises that it comes from the godhead. He repeats that in 1 Cor, 2 Cor, Gal, Eph & Phil, and it is only when we come to Colossians that he omits reference to Jesus. In 1 Thess he simply says “Grace to you and peace” but in 2 Thess he reverts to the full formula, also seen in Titus and Philemon. In 1 & 2 Timothy he adds ‘mercy' in the formula.
So what does this teach us overall? It says that for the apostle Paul this peace, this sense of wholeness and wellbeing before God, and our lives generally, is all important. Grace and peace are the only things he asks for every single one of the recipients of his letters and peace, being so important is marked out from grace in general as something we all need. If it is absent, and my contention is that it is in so many, then we need to look at why and what can be done to regain it.
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Short Meditations on Peace 2. Peace with God
Col 1:2 To the holy and faithful brothers in Christ in Colosse: Grace and peace to you from God our Father
In the first introductory meditation we noted a footnote reference that suggested that peace is when a person's life with God and with everything else is in ordered harmony. The first area of peace that is important is peace with God Himself. This has to be our starting place. In every one of his letters apart from 1 Thess, we noted previously, this peace comes from God the Father and in most of them Paul also includes, “and the Lord Jesus Christ.” I suggest, therefore, we need to consider that this peace is both in respect of God and from God.
Now I put ‘in respect of God' first because I think that is the more obvious issue. So many people are fearful of God, not the respect kind of fear but a fear out of ignorance of what He might be like and what He might do to you. The Gospel brings peace with God. That is the first and most important peace we should be concerned about. The truth is that since the Fall every single human being without exception (except Jesus!) has been out of sorts with God. That's the gentle way of putting it; in rebellion against God is the stronger way of putting it.
We suffer from this inherited characteristic called Sin which I define as self-centred godlessness resulting in unrighteous thoughts, words and deeds. Yet Solomon said that God has “put eternity into man's heart” (Prov 3:11) which means that deep down every one of us senses that there is something more to life than this short existence of ‘three score and ten years' (although it tends to be a lot more than that now). In addition to that, there seems throughout history and across the face of the world, that there is something in mankind that wants to worship someone or some thing. It is only in the superficial security of modern Western life that crusading atheists deny this need which, they say, comes from historical insecurity. Yet even they reveal an absence of this shalom peace in their lives. Observe their irrational anger over the follies of ‘religion' that they observed in childhood or on the fringes of religious struggles and note the lack of peace.
We may disguise our absence of loving relationship with God in a myriad of ways but that's what we do to disguise that absence of peace that is so normal to us. Of course it was never meant to be like that, and yet while we had free will, it was going to be like that! We choose independence without realising that we are defective without that relationship. Imagine living in a house with someone who is at odds with you and nothing you can do or say will make it better. Absence of peace! That is your friend or family member who does not know God. Stressed! And it is so normal that we take it for granted! |
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Short Meditations on Peace 3. Peace with & from God
Rom 5:1 we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ
We left the previous meditation somewhat hanging but I wanted us to realise that without a living relationship with God any person WILL lack peace because God has designed us so that deep down, until we get it resolved, that is how it will be.
Now of course we cannot ‘get it resolved' on our own. Because Sin is inherent within us we are helpless to get rid of it. That's where Jesus came in. His work on the Cross, the New Testament tells us, includes taking the punishment we deserve for our Sin, all the wrongs we have ever thought, said or done. That, it goes on to say, is so that we can be at peace with God with justice having been satisfied, so we can enter into a relationship with Him. This is why the apostle Paul uses the word ‘reconcile' or ‘reconciliation' (e.g. Eph 2:16, Col 1:20, Rom 5:10). The work of Jesus is all about restoring us to God (reconciling us to Him and Him to us) and thus restored, we may know peace with Him. He is not angry about our Sin because Jesus dealt with it; it no longer separates us from Him. We no longer have to be fearful of Him because we now know that He is the One who set up the whole plan of our salvation from the beginning of time, for us to receive today. The wonder is that we can do nothing to be ‘more saved', we just are.
Everything He does is an expression of His love for us. To say that in this position we have peace, almost feels like an understatement but it is true; it is like peace is a background ‘environment' for our lives. God's love now brings all the features of the Christian life into our lives but peace is there as the background scenery on the stage of our lives. As good as I think that picture is, it doesn't fully explain what takes place in our lives, because we said in the previous meditation that there is peace both in respect of God and from God.
We've just considered the ‘in respect of God' bit but how does it comes ‘from God'? Well, it comes through His word; that's how we hear about it, whether we read it ourselves or someone preaches it. As we hear the Gospel, as we come to understand our sinfulness and the wonderful work of Jesus on the Cross, so the Holy Spirit convicted us that this was the truth and we responded to him in repentance. In what the Bible calls ‘the new birth' – being ‘born again' (Jn 3) – or converted, we were forgiven by God and justified (made right according to justice) AND He places His own Holy Spirit within us, i.e. His presence indwells us from then on, we are the temple of the Holy Spirit (e.g. 1 Cor 3:16). Wherever He is, there is peace. Peace now indwells us. That is the starting place – but it can be disturbed, which we'll see as we move on.
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Short Meditations on Peace 4. Peace can be lost, regain it
Phil 4:6,7 present your requests to God. And the peace of God,… will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
In the previous meditation we said that peace is there as the environment in which we live or, to use another picture, it is like the scenery in the background on the stage of our lives but, we added, it can be disturbed.
Why? How? The answer to those two questions is because we live in a fallen world, a world that goes wrong, and has gone wrong ever since the Fall (Gen 3). From then on, the presence of Sin in the world meant that our wrong actions harmed the world or disturbed the world and so today everyday life can be worrying and worry destroys peace.
Today life for us is extraordinarily easy in comparison to living in the first century. Today we drive to the local supermarket and get our food. If we are in difficulties, we probably get state benefits. Health care is on hand but nevertheless things still go wrong in life – and we worry about what might happen. Illnesses come, accidents happen, the economy takes a turn for the worst, global warming means we have extremes of weather; we live in a fallen world where things go wrong.
Now as children of God we need to know that our Father in heaven is there for us to guard us and guide us, protect and direct us and keep us from harm. Jesus taught his disciples to pray, “Deliver us from the evil one”. We are to remember that our Lord is there working on our behalf for good at all times (Rom 8:28). We'll say more about that in a later mediation.
But then there are, shall we call them, more normal uncertainties – taking an exam, for instance. There is going to a doctor about a pain we've prayed against but which wouldn't go. What is it, what might have to happen? The need for peace. Then there is the next door neighbour who plays loud music late at night and who you don't think will be open to a reasonable plea for change. The need for peace. Then there are the delays on the way to an important appointment and it looks certain you will be late. The need for peace. Often they will be things out of our control, things not going as they should, things causing problems or difficulties - worry. The need for peace.
How does peace come? We pray. As we pray nothing changes as far as the circumstances are concerned but within us comes this peace, an almost unaccountable peace, and yet it is the sure knowledge that the Lord has heard and He is in control and it will be all right. Peace often doesn't depend on the outward circumstances, the outward appearance when it comes to spiritual issues, it comes from the Lord who is in control and who is never stressed but who always has peace. |
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Short Meditations on Peace 5. Useful Disquiet
1 Cor 14:32 God is not a God of disorder but of peace .
Our focus is on peace and how it can be taken from us, and then how we can regain it; that is what we are covering in these particular meditations, but sometimes the absence of peace can be good. Now that seems to go against all else we are saying, but think about it for a moment. The absence of peace can act as a warning to us that things are not right and we need to be alert and find out what is going on and what we need to do.
Sometimes when we are seeking guidance, for example, and we have two options before us, an absence of peace, or a ‘disquiet' about one of them, suggests which is not the right path to take. Peace is useful. Yes, we may need to carry out other checks to confirm the guidance, but that disquiet can be a starting point of guidance.
I think we very often take peace for granted. It is something God has given us as Christians and of course it is a fruit of the Holy Spirit (Gal 5:22,23). It is something He brings in us and so it is there most of the time and in that ‘most' we can take it for granted, but when it is absent we need to sit up and take note. It is a sign that God is not happy with the situation.
The absence of peace in respect of guidance, I just said, can be a useful thing, but it may be more than in simple guidance. Let's just take one illustration. If you are a parent, you may suddenly lack peace in respect of one of your children. I don't know if you pray for your children every day but if you do, then it may be as you pray for one of them, then suddenly you are aware of a disquiet or lack of peace about them. Something is wrong, something needs checking, something needs praying through, and so the absence of peace that we identify becomes a ‘warning light on the dashboard' of life that shows we need to take action. Maybe we need to go and get closer to them and give them opportunity to open up and share so we may be able to help. Disquiet led us there, the absence of peace.
Now this whole area of ‘disquiet' or the absence of peace is an important one but the trouble is that many of us have never learned to be self-aware in this respect. This whole series is really about being aware when peace is absent and then taking appropriate steps to regain in but if we are not conscious of that peace we will also fail to be aware when we have a disquiet. Disquiet isn't merely the absence of peace, it is the absence linked to something specific, and this can apply right across the spectrum of our lives and so we may come back to it again and again as we identify the various things that come into our lives, or we allow to happen, that steal our peace.
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Short Meditations on Peace 6. The World's Poverty
1 Pet 1:2 Grace and peace be yours in abundance.
I have entitled this meditation ‘The World's Poverty' not to speak about financial poverty but to consider the poverty (or absence) of peace that is in the world. Go next door and it is absent in the home of my unbelieving neighbour. This we forget so much of the time, that peace is largely absent in the mind of the unbeliever. We take it for granted for it is our inheritance – but not theirs.
They may not be ‘unhappy' as long as they keep doing things, as long as they keep busy and keep active, but if they are left in silence, then worry and anxiety rise to the surface. My unbelieving neighbour lacks peace because they are on their own in the world and the people who are around them are fickle and can be so self-centred and turn on them so easily. All around them marriages or simple partnerships are breaking up, hundreds of thousands every year and relational breakup is one of the greatest reasons for absence of peace.
If this appears a somewhat condemnatory assessment of the world it is not meant to be, merely a recognition of the state of life that an unbeliever has, with no strong sense of undergirding security. How we take for granted the knowledge and presence of the Lord in our lives as Christians and the blessings He brings to them. My friend and neighbour has the same worries and concerns that I have (which we'll consider more fully in a later meditation) but has rarely anyone who is there for them with whom they can share their worries and receive wisdom or counsel.
Talking with those who come through to Christ, one is reminded of the realities of the godless life. When the apostle Paul was reminding the Ephesians of what their lives used to be like before coming to Christ he spoke of “gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts.” (Eph 2:3) That description suggests a self-centred life, one of self-satisfying, self-centred thoughts and desires but one that is never satisfied, never content. In reality, as we look around, it is one that seeks personal gratification by food, drink, pleasure of many kinds and new experiences. It desires love but rarely finds it, substituting it with temporary sexual experience that leads nowhere except frustration and loneliness. It lacks grace to cope, refuses to grant forgiveness and holds on to hurts and grudges and so easily takes offence. It worries about out of control finances fuelled by ongoing desire to keep up with everyone else and has a Pandora's Box of worries that are so extensive it dare not be opened. In this sort of environment, it is no wonder that peace is absent. This is what your unsaved friend lives with. Don't forget it. Pray for them.
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Short Meditations on Peace 7. And Us?
Phil 4:6,9 D o not be anxious about anything …. the God of peace will be with you.
The previous meditation may have seemed alarmingly harsh but is, I believe, a realistic assessment of our unsaved neighbour, but what about ourselves? What about our lives? It is possible that some parts of that assessment apply to us. Maybe it is because we are new Christians who have not yet learned the ways of Christ, or maybe it is simply that we belong to churches where the teaching leaves much to be desired, or maybe it is simply that without thought we have drifted into ways of living that align themselves with the ways of ‘the world' that are contrary to the ways of Christ.
The apostle John wrote about ‘the world' meaning the godless way of thinking that is prevalent in so much of the population of the world, and summed it up as, “the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does.” (1 Jn 2:16) i.e. pleasure driven, wanting more of what he sees, and a life of boasting and being concerned with what others think. If we allow these three areas to prevail in our lives, it will be no surprise that we are stressed, worrying, anxious, discontented and yearning for more, which is all summed up as an absence of peace!
So yes, peace is a commodity that we can take for granted as Christians and maybe we have not realised the reality of the Lord's presence there in our lives and so we are worriers, and worriers know little of peace.
How do we get back to a right place? Commit your way to the Lord, put all your concerns into His hands and rest in His love for you. That is how peace comes. That is the starting place. If I simply say ‘pray', how glib that can sound, but yes, it is through prayer but that supposes that we have the comfort of knowing that He is there, listening and hearing and attending to us, loving us and being there for us. If we doubt any of these things peace will be absent. In these days of talk of ‘mindfulness' and well-being, peace is an elusive commodity but one that is regained when you wait on Him and come into His presence. Paul said peace comes through prayer, encountering God (Phil 4:6).
With Him there is always peace because as we said in a previous meditation, the Lord is in control and is never stressed but is always at peace. The Lord is perfect and complete and has no needs outside Himself. He is all-powerful, all knowing and all-wise, and so is never stressed but always at total peace. That peace surrounds Him and so when we come into His presence, we too will experience His peace. We will also face the things that rob us of our peace.
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Short Meditations on Peace 8. Peace in Being & Doing
1 Cor 7:15 the God of peace will be with you
We concluded the previous meditation suggesting that in God's presence there is total peace AND also it will be there if we will face the issues of our lives that rob us of our peace. We need to start looking at those issues. The first to be considered is our identity.
Very often we lack peace because we do not know who we are. Unless we truly know who we are, our peace will be undermined by doubts or worries about our status before God, often with a feeling of need to prove ourselves to God. This means we are constantly worrying about whether are getting God's approval. Worry is the enemy of peace.
So how do we overcome these worries and anxieties so that peace may rule again? We need to turn to the Bible and believe what we read. John in his Gospel speaks of God giving to those who believe in Jesus the right to be called “children of God” (Jn 1:12) and then in his first letter declares how great it is that we should be called sons of God, “and that is what we are.” (1 Jn 3:1,2)
We ARE God's children and we have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus, his work on the Cross, and therefore there is nothing we can add to make us more His children. We just are. Now we have to enjoy being His children and not worry about it. Be at peace in being a child of God.
But then there is another aspect of this and it is about what we do as Christians, not about not sinning – for I assume you are not consciously and purposefully sinning – but what we do generally in life. I find Christians who worry (and thus lack peace) because they are not sure what they are doing in life is what God wants.
There are several ways of dealing with this. First there is the school that says unless your job actively involves sin, any job is OK for you, any occupation for you. I'm not sure of that. Some of us are artists at heart and others are accountants. Some of us are highly creative and others less so. Some of us are comfortable with facts and figures, mathematicians or scientists, and others who are either utterly bored by them or struggle with them.
Knowing yourself is a good starting place. There is a verse that always comes to mind for this situation: “We are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Eph 2:10) Now depending where your faith level is you can take this to mean your activities in life in general, your serving in the church, or a specific calling to do something special with your life. How do you know? Seek Him, pray, wait on Him, listen and watch and when it comes – peace!
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Short Meditations on Peace 10. Peace in Crisis
Jas 1:2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds
Another aspect of why we may lack peace, it is the aspect of living through a crisis. (You may have thought the job issue in the previous meditation is a crisis issue for you). A crisis in our lives tends to be something out of our control and, therefore, of which we have no control as to how or when it will be ended and what might happen to us in it. The way we handle it or cope with it may depend on past experiences, what we have learned of life, or even our personality.
It is natural in a crisis for there to be an absence of peace because there tend to be so many question marks hanging over us that are, as yet, unresolved. I'm struggling not to identify specific types of crisis because whatever I suggest, you may find yourself in something different, because that is what happens in a fallen world, there is a tremendous variety of things that go wrong, but generally such crises tend to be health-related, work related, finance related or relationship-related. The question arises in such situations, apart from praying, what can we do?
With health issues if we are not in faith to pray for healing (which is where many of us are) then the first step is going to seek help from the medical profession and have our worries alleviated by the advice or diagnosis of a doctor. If it is work it, very often, is beyond us being able to do anything. Finances we'll deal with separately. Relationships are so often about breakdowns and so seeking the Lord for wisdom to know what to say or do is a vital first step. Again we'll consider relationship issues separately. One of the causes of worry in these situations is the sense of being alone and therefore it is down to me to resolve this, but how? Well there is a very well-known verse that should be applied here that we have recently referred to: “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and have been called according to His purpose.” (Rom 8:28)
We have each (who are Christians) been called by God into relationship with Him, to receive of Him as His children. He is our provider and at the very least promises us His wisdom (Jas 1:5) and His grace (His resources to cope) are available to us – all part of His calling and purpose for us. But He also tells us that He is working for us in whatever situation we find ourselves and He is working to bring good out of that situation. That ‘good' may be a change in you (what does He want you to become through it?) or a change in the circumstances themselves. Thank Him that He is there for you, to provide the grace you need and thank Him that He IS in your circumstances to work good for you in them. Rest and know peace.
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Short Meditations on Peace 11. Peace with finances
Isa 26:3 You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you.
For the early part of our married life I had a very good job and, without children, we had no financial worries. The Lord then led me into a better job but with a smaller salary (better in that the quality of our life increased) and then three children came along. I am aware, as I look back that during that period I was constantly looking at what we were spending and wondering much of the time how we were going to get by. As young Christians we wanted to tithe as we saw that as an Old Testament practice at least, it was a useful tool in God's workbox for our lives to set us free from being slaves to finances and also learning something of faith. Nevertheless, I am sure that during that time I lacked peace about our finances. I know what that is like. I was sure I was in the right work place but we hardly got by. Incorrect, we had everything we needed and we were not poor.
Now as I think about that testimony above I realise that so much of the time it is all about perspective, how we view our lives. You have no doubt heard Mr McCawber's adage (of Dickens fame) about finances which in modern terms is, “a pound in the black and peace; a pound in the red and worry.” Apart from a mortgage and a loan on a car many years ago, we were never in the red. If we didn't have the money, we didn't buy it. At the end of the month I always pay off our entire credit card bill. When I took early retirement from a teaching job (decades ago now!) we used the money to pay off our mortgage contrary to the financial advice which is to have as much debt as possible. Why keep on paying interest to other people???? No, we had peace.
Contentment is being at peace with what you have. The advertising world and the fashion world and the world in general encourage you to have and get more and more. If you have the mentality of needing to keep up with others, and so need to keep looking for a bigger and better house, a bigger and better car, and so on, you will lack peace; you are living at less than God's design for your life. Although changing jobs and careers four times in my life, we have managed to stay in the same house for over forty years and live well. Every job change meant a reduction in income but an increase in quality of life. We no longer tithe as such, but we give, some on a regular basis and others when we see a need we sense the Lord wants us to meet. I believe our faith is bigger now than when we first tithed when it comes to money.
Want to avoid the absence of peace in your finances? Receive gratefully what God gives in your circumstances, but don't overstretch yourself. See what above speaks to you. Read it again.
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Short Meditations on Peace 12. Peace in relationships
Prov 17:1 Better a dry crust with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting, with strife .
I suspect that relationships are the most fertile ground for upsets in our lives and therefore for absence of peace. I believe dealing with issues from the past requires a separate meditation of its own and so will deal with that in the next meditation. So, relationships in the present. How well we get on – or don't – with other people depends on a number of issues, major ones being how we were brought up, what was expected of us, how successful we were, what we achieved and then, when we became a Christian, the extent of our knowledge of how much we are loved by God and that in itself will depend on how much we read the Bible ourselves, how much we pray, and what teaching we get from church and the experience we have of God's people.
All of the above things contribute to how we cope with or handle other people. The fact is that people (and that includes us) are not always nice and so there, straight away, is the main cause for lack of peace. If we were able to be utterly indifferent in respect of what we thought about other people and what they say, life would be easy, we could shrug off their criticisms, their negative comments and so on, but we're not like that. We feel. The old ‘self' looks to other people for affirmation of identity. We want to be liked, we want to be loved and when we are not (often for reasons beyond our control), if we are not a very strong and secure person, we will find some measure of anguish and anguish means absence of peace.
If people are actively against us and perhaps even threaten us - a brother, a hostile neighbour, a superior at work, a school bully – then that ‘anguish' I referred to may include fear. The presence of fear is yet another cause for absence of peace.
From what I have said so far, the need to build up personal security, knowing that in Christ I am loved by God and He is all for me, is paramount. Knowing why people are like they are may also help. The manager at work who is giving you grief perhaps has an unhappy home life. The hostile neighbour may be struggling with children going off the rails and feels everyone is looking at them. The snappy person may have just been told they need to go into hospital for tests. The school ground bully may have only one parent who is never at home for them. If you are a teacher you know that the child who starts acting out of character and starts acting rudely, arriving late, failing to give in homework and so on, is almost certainly one who has just heard that their parents are splitting up. Understanding people helps cope with people. But there is more. Watch this space.
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Short Meditations on Peace 13. Peace in relationships (2)
Prov 17:1 Better a dry crust with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting, with strife.
We started to think about how our own insecurity may make coping with people difficult, and also about why people are ‘nasty' suggesting understanding them may help cope with them. However we understand them they still say and do unpleasant things which requires grace to handle, and for that we need to seek the Lord. Our starting place is to reject lies and pray for them. After all, Jesus did say love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you (Mt 5:44) But they are still obnoxious! So pray, be patient and look for an opportunity to bless them, yes bless them, showing the character of your Father in heaven who loves them.
But then comes the matter of forgiveness. We first have to clear up our own indiscretions and so if you have wronged another or spoken to them in a way your Father would not approve of, go, pray, seek them out at an opportune moment, and ask their forgiveness.
But what about the other way round? They have sinned against you. Popular opinion is just forgive them but forgiveness is a legal action based in heaven. There are three things to be noted here: First, forgive as your father in heaven forgives, was Jesus' teaching but the truth is that God doesn't forgive until there has been repentance. It's true, look throughout the Bible.
Second, the Bible's teaching does declare that when someone does repent and come seeking our forgiveness we MUST forgive, we cannot hold back forgiveness after repentance, because God always forgives us when we repent. But what about in the meantime? What if they never see their sin and never come to seek you out?
Well, third, the Bible shows God's example towards us which we are to follow towards others, and that is always to look for the best for every person, desiring the best for them, that hopefully they may come into a good place with God (because at the moment they have an unresolved issue with Him in respect of their sin against you) and eventually come to repentance. Thus we need to have a good heart towards them, even while waiting for them to repent. That may require more grace than casually saying, “I forgive them.”
Forgiveness, when it is sought but refused, is a main cause for stress and absence of peace. Holding bad attitudes (even when we think they are justified) towards others is another main cause for lack of peace. Working and praying positively for the good of others, even those who have hurt us, lifts us into the realm of heavenly blessing and there, in the presence of God, we said, is peace.
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Short Meditations on Peace 14. Peace over the past
Isa 32:17 The fruit of righteousness will be peace; the effect of righteousness will be quietness and confidence forever.
In the previous two meditations we considered a little of the stress (and therefore absence of peace) that comes with relational breakdown and I suggested that relationships are the most fertile ground for upsets in our lives and therefore for absence of peace. But often these things have their roots in the distant past, things that happened years ago, maybe in our childhood, and we are living today with the damage from that. It is another of those things that robs us of knowing peace in our lives. Very often such things we push into our subconscious and, on the surface at least, forget them.
But they are not forgotten because every now and then something happens that triggers a response based on what happened back then. Imagine two children playing when they are fairly young and they have got hold of and managed to light a blow torch. One of them waving it around carelessly blows it across the upper arm of the other one causing very serious burns, which leave a scar. Now suppose the scar leaves a very tender feeling. Every time someone or something goes near that arm, that person, now grown up, will veer away from being touched.
Now translate that into the emotional trauma that can be left in an abused life. I used to know a lovely Christian man who eventually told me that his father used to lock him away in a room for hours on end when he was a child. For 98% of the time he was fine but every now and then something triggered the darkness he had known as a child, and he found himself withdrawing into his own dark hole and no one could get near him.
If such things have happened to you, you may say in the light of the previous meditation, “You want me to think well of the one who abused me as a child for years?” I would like you to face it and seek counsel from a trained local counsellor, I cannot do it in a few words here. We once counselled a young woman who shared she had been constantly raped by her father as a teenager and as a result could not let a man near her. Incredibly she was married and had two small children. How, we asked? I got drunk, she replied. To cut a long story short we listened to her for a morning, prayed over her for an afternoon and she went home free, so much so, her (unsaved) husband came and saw me and asked, “What did you do with my wife? She's a raving sex maniac now?” He was blessed. She was free. It was God.
Don't let past unresolved issues remain unresolved. Do seek help. God can deliver and heal ANYTHING! Peace follows.
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Short Meditations on Peace 15. Peace in World Crises
Psa 121:3 He will not let your foot slip-- he who watches over you will not slumber;
The truth is that we live in a worrying world and because we live in media saturated world, we hear about all these things that can cause worries and worries, of course, rob us of the peace that should be ours. In 2016 in the UK there have been worries over leaving the European Union, in the USA there were worries over the candidates in the race for the White House. On top of these things there are ever the clouds overshadowing us of Global warming and Global terrorism. Back in the last century there were worries over the Cold War with the USSR and those worries have been resurrected by the activities of the Russian president. Will it all end in one big bang? On top of these things we have virus's that seem to appear from nowhere and we now use words like Pandemic to describe the potential horrors of world-wide plagues. We live in a fallen world and things go wrong, so how can be possibly have peace in the midst of all this?
The first thing to remember, taking hold of the ‘big picture', is that God is in control of His world and it IS His world, because He made it, perfect at the beginning but not so now. Second, remember He is working with a heavenly agenda and although He allows wars to bring discipline to nations, He is still in control. Third, remember His adversary, the devil, is only a fallen angel, one small being in God's big creation and Jesus taught us to pray, “Deliver us from the evil one” (Mt 6:13) which is a daily reminder that we need God's protection – which He'll give!
Our header verse above comes from a psalm that is all about security and in it the Psalmist reminds us that our help, our security, is to come from God (v.2), who keeps watch over all His children (v.3,4). Indeed, he goes on, He will keep watch over you twenty-four hours a day (v.5,6) and He will keep you from harm (v.7) because He sees everything you do (v.8) and, by implication, will make sure you remain safe.
The book of Revelation is a strange book as far as many are concerned but after an introductory chapter and then two chapters addressed to local churches of Asia Minor, our perspective of history is set in the light of what is in heaven – God Almighty (chapter 4) and the lamb of God (chapter 5) who is given a scroll which is end time history to open. This is God who is sovereign, God who came to save you, God who is overseeing all that happens today. Let everything else be seen in the light of these truths, these realities, It is your loving heavenly Father who is supreme over all things. Be at peace in His love.
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Short Meditations on Peace 16. Peace in Trials
Jas 1:2-4 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
Now there are (let's be real!) times when we go through trials and testings, and those times are not easy. In fact, it might be legitimate to ask, is it possible to have peace in the time of trial? Again, seeking to be real, I suspect the honest answer has to be, initially at least, probably not. Why? Because these things tend to come to us out of the blue, so to speak, without warning and the first thing we know is that things seem to be going wrong. Worry!
Remember Paul's words to the Philippians: “ The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Phil 4:4-7) Challenging words that start with the suggestion that God is there, on our case – but we are anxious, otherwise we wouldn't need Paul's words. His counsel: pray and God's peace will come.
But it's a difficult trial? How can peace come? Perhaps first by recognising that it is a trial and such things are either brought or allowed by God and if that is so, the Lord is looking for you to pass the test. God isn't out to pull you down, He's there to build you up, He wants you to pass this test, to succeed in it, to triumph in adversity.
What is going on when a test comes? God is wanting you to learn, to realise just who you are, a child of God with all of His resources available to you. Be at peace in it – He's in control and He's standing there holding out His resources to you to take.
Remember, through the Cross of Christ He has provided absolutely everything you need to see you through life: “ God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.” (2 Cor 9:8) He tells us He has a plan for us: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Eph 2:10) Life is no accident. With God there is purpose.
So to conclude, God's got a plan for you, He's with you and He's provided everything you might need for any and every circumstance, and that includes times that are trials or testings, and so you can be at peace in them, once you realise what is going on and understand the dynamics of God's love that comes to us in this way sometimes. He's allowing this for your blessing. Rejoice in it as such.
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Short Meditations on Peace 17. Peace & Contentment
1 Tim 6:6 there is great gain in godliness with contentment
Two meditations back we considered the absence of peace that comes from worries over major world issues, and then in the previous one, worries that come over trials and difficulties, personal hassles, but between the two there is a whole major area of absence of peace which is caused by the world's discontent.
Prosperity, modern economics says, comes from buying and consuming things, and as such it encourages us to want more and more and more, but the only trouble about that it that such a philosophy leaves us never satisfied and so we are all discontented and lack peace.
Paul's teaching to Timothy was in the context of wrong teaching. That teaching was in a spiritual context and the teaching we are talking about comes out of an economic context but it has a spiritual dimension to it. The world's economic teaching comes in a godless context, it comes from man's wisdom and forgets God.
Very often it is the godless context that causes people to strive for more and more. Not knowing they are loved by God, not having any relationship with Him, they strive to achieve purpose and meaning, identity and fame. I watch people do this all the time. It doesn't necessarily have to be people striving to earn more or even get more possessions to achieve self-worth, it is often people striving to achieve things in society. Local councillors, for example, in local government, may be there because they want to make a name for themselves. Some may genuinely be there to do good for the community, but even that goal can have an underlying motive to get a name. All of these sorts of things mean we are worried about who we are, worried about what we have, and so we are discontented and lack peace.
There is a significant verse I often quote and quoted in the previous meditation that applies: “ “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Eph 2:10) When we come into relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, the whole of our live can be viewed from a new perspective – that of being a child of a loving heavenly Father who has got plans and purposes for us to bless us. The focus of life stops being on striving to achieve, but learning to listen to Him to see what HE has on His heart for us. With this approach we can rest in Him, be content with what I am and have TODAY, realising He may have more for us tomorrow, but as we are open to Him, He will lead us into it, and in that perspective we can be at peace. We trust all of these 17 reflections will help you to live in peace. May it be so.
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