He had had a particularly exhausting day and was already crashed on the couch at 3:30. I sat with him for a bit but his brothers started crawling over us so we went upstairs to his bed for some quiet mommy time, and it worked.
“You look so tired love” I quieted as I ran my hand over his hair and down his cheek, cupping it for a moment.
“Ya, I am”
Was it a rough day?”
“No, just tired”
We began talking about a few things and I don’t know how we got to the subject of WW2 but there it was.
“Why did there have to be world wars?”, he asked.
So I talked about Hitler and Germany, without saying those names and how he just wanted to take over the world.
“That’s greedy!” he spoke with certainty
“Yes” I agreed, “It is” and went on, “So he used his armies to take over many countries and the other countries in the world knew this was wrong so they worked together to fight back, and they won”
“But why did he even start it?”
“Because some people don't know Jesus and so they don’t understand peace, they don’t choose peace” I did my best to explain
“I want peace!!” He proclaimed.
“I know love” and I was holding back the weeps, “I do too”
What is this “peace” you speak of? I don’t understand. My walk with Him is not peaceful. It is certainly not a stroll through pleasant pastures all the time. I am striving to dig in with Him and my life is anything but peaceful. I have wrestled with peace this week. As soon as I began to ponder it, roll it around in my head and heart. As soon as I laid my thoughts to it, I was anything but at peace. And the more I searched it out, the farther it felt to me.
I felt like Jacob, trying to wrestle this to the ground and yet I could not subdue it, and so every day I prayed to God “I am not letting go of this, bless me with your peace, your understanding” I was weepy all week, whenever peace became the focus - the umbrella over the current actions, my heart would break a little more that I was not feeling His coveted peace in that moment.
The angels; bold, bright, harkening angels came to exalt “Peace on Earth!”
They are wild and sweet words; terrifying and joyous,
“Do not imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth! I came not to bring peace, but a sword. ‘I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter in law against her mother in law. Your enemies will be right in your own household’ “(Matt 10:34-35)
And we see the wars across the earth and children eating garbage and dodging chlorine bombs and here we tear each other up over the internet and battle pipelines and draw political lines and shout at race debates and wring our hands because there is no peace on earth.
Where is the peace?! Our Prince of Peace did not come to bring peace? What is this puzzle?
I believe we want to sing the peace of Christ come but, hate silences our song and we wallow in despair because we have forgotten. We have forgotten who it is all for. We don’t live for ourselves, we live for Him!
“You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you”(Isa 26:3)
We are all asleep, we are in the dark and we are asleep. And so when you bring the light and rouse the sleeping, is it peaceful?
He brings his light and we see the filth and chaos we are living in and we are at war with ourselves and rebelling against him but, if we choose his life we end up at war with the world. There is no deep abiding true and lasting “peace on earth” until he returns. He left his Holy Spirit here on earth until his work is done but, who are the workers? Where are they? what are they doing with his spirit? Are they listening? Are they watching for places to take peace - to BE peace? Or are they trying to store up God’s grace and peace for themselves? And I am sobbing at the thought of Jesus, our redeemer, saviour, champion, fighter, friend, brother, interceder, and all that he has already done for us and yet we continue to back burner him, as if He wasn’t really 100% man and 100% God, and didn’t really perform miracles, and never actually was nailed through his hands and feet and died and rose again. We can not even grasp the concept of peace with out first holding to hope. It is Hope that brings us to the threshold of Peace.
How pitiful my sacrifice is in comparison to His. How unworthy I am, how peace-less I feel. I fail in my efforts to live up to him and yet, and yet as I flit and flop and flail about in my efforts I reach back to my hope. I grasp for it.. where is it? I look around me, above me and beneath me and there it is. Going down, way down, it is weighted in the ground. An anchor. And I know it will hold and. And I am breathing in Shalom. It is so beautiful. Shalom; harmony, wholeness, completeness. Because in Shalom there is peace and in Shalom it is paid for and in Shalom there is safety and Shalom is shared and Shalom is a movement. And I have come to understand that I have been caught up on a word that doesn’t do justice to all Christ has done for me, and all that he requires I do for him. Peace only means the absence of war. Shalom brings the wholeness of Christ and passes it on.
I am swimming in the unrest of Zacharias and unwavering hope of Simeon, and taking them as Shalom, a blessing of the complete love of Christ. Zacharias, after months of being struck unable to speak because of his lack of faith is finally given words and his tongue back and what burst forth from his mouth is nothing but praise and proclamation and he is undoubtedly forever changed.
“And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High: for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death to guide our feet into the path of peace.”(Luke 1:76-79)
And Simeon who after a lifetime and more of waiting on the promises of the Lord is finally released,
“Simeon took him (Jesus) in his arms saying: “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for the revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Isreal”(Luke 2:28-32)
These two servants, like Jacob, like me held tight to the Lord. I will not let go of you until you bless me. You have promised and I am holding on to Hope, from there I will see peace.
I believe none of us can truly encounter God and not be left unchanged.
This is my distinction of peace; It is an anchored unrest. We wrestle for peace and he claims us and names us and gives us a Holy unrest.. And it is a dichotomy but, there is the peace. It can only come from Him, we can not create peace on our own, like women in childbirth we writhe in pain but give birth to wind, we do not bring salvation or peace to the earth, he does, and he has left us to be his peace bearers until his return. It is our Hope that leads to his Peace and it all comes from Him.
How will you bear His Peace?
Shalom..
