Reflecting on this the last couple of days…as we wrestle through hard days… It seems to me that peace has come to mean the time when there aren’t any battles…or at least no major wars. Beggars can’t be choosers and I think that most of us would settle for that.
But in the Hebrew language, peace is the word shalom. It means: fullness or wholeness. Having everything you need to wholly fully and joyfully yourself. How many of us truly know what it means to be us…ourselves. We live in the shadow of fear of rejection, judgement, abandonment, failure…and we end up hiding in the caves of our past…longing for peace but afraid to hope for it.
One of the titles by which Jesus is known is Prince of Peace, and he used the word himself in what seems at first glance to be two radically contradictory utterances. On one occasion he said to the disciples, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace but a sword” (Matt. 10:34). And later on, the last time they ate together, he said to them, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you” (John 14:27).
The contradiction is resolved when I begin to realize that for Jesus, peace is not the absence of struggle…but the presence of love…which unlocks the treasures that fear keep locked in our hearts. Peace. Wholeness. Acceptance. Hmmm.
Coming fully alive…so we are truly able to be us. At peace with the place we are at in the journey with Christ…at peace with who we are…and who we aren’t. Sounds kinda beautiful.
Just thoughts.
2 comments:
I'm not sure how close this ties to what PJ wrote but I leave it in the comment section anyway...
I just finished reading “A Fine Balance” by Rohinton Mistry. What a horribly depressing, yet somehow redemptive, story to drive home the fact that life is not so much about our circumstances or our status (or caste in this case) as it is about who we draw to ourselves and allow to be part of our joy and misery and the attitude with which we chose to live life.
At the end of this story the levels of joy or satisfaction or peace in the main characters lives are not determined by having money, having jobs, having the brightest future, being treated “fairly”, being justified, being recognized or living without struggle. In fact, the characters who end up the most content and at peace with life are the ones who’ve had the most taken from them physically, financially & anatomically. Why were they so content? They had each other. The loved each other.
It is so easy for us to think that peace and happiness will be determined by what we do, what job we have, how much money we have, how promising our future is, how perfect our life is, or how few problems or crises we encounter. When really, according to this book I read (and others, the Bible for one ☺), it’s about who we are, who we are becoming and the people around us who we love and who love us in return. None of the other stuff means anything in the end.
“Peace is not the absence of struggle…but the presence of love…which unlocks the treasures that fear keep locked in our hearts. Peace. Wholeness. Acceptance.” I think Rohinton Mistry would echo this message. For Omprakash and Ishvar, the fact that they had each others love and acceptance was the only thing that kept them through the deluge of misfortune that would be heaped upon them during the course of their lives.
Maybe we need to spend less time investing in our physically securities to create some sense of "peace" about the future and more time investing in our relationships. Isn’t that what every one ends up saying on their deathbeds anyway? Will we ever catch on? Will I ever catch on?
wanted to comment on this...and in many ways it parallels some of erin's thoughts.
have been wrestling with some of my personal fear/anxiety as i walk the campus of UBC, and have been confronted with some of my personal/past assumptions about peace.
so oftentimes when we are talking about the making of major decisions or counselling our friends on direction, the language of 'you'll have peace' is used.
but as i've spent a couple weeks on campus and continued to struggle with not sensing my 'place' here, i've stumbled over what i've assumed what 'peace' Jesus brings to my life.
From my journal:
"is it possible not to have peace in the place...but in the pursuit? so often i think we tie our inner peace to whether we're 'in the right place'...when today i'm wondering if it isn't about doing/pursuing the right things?"
what are the implications of a life lived not by 'peace of heart' necessarily, but a calm resolution that i will live a certain way? and what of those times in life when we are stirred to act/live/move when peace is seemingly fleeting, but our conscience and will enflamed? i wonder some of how we've characterized the path of Christ as 'peaceful'...when sometimes i wonder if we shouldn't feel some level of inner dissonance over the choices we are making? Christ's message and call is compelling...but it is not passifying!! can Christ be found in passionate [and sometimes unprocessed] action alone? sigh...
my journal entry concluded with that wish...that regardless of right/wrongness, i want only to be found by Him.
SW
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