Take a moment to be peaceful
December 17, 2017
Add to Favourites
1 Peter 3: 10-11
10 For
‘Those who desire life
and desire to see good days,
let them keep their tongues from evil
and their lips from speaking deceit;
11 let them turn away from evil and do good;
let them seek peace and pursue it.
In this reading we are called to seek peace and pursue it. That poses the question: where am I seeking it?
Every week at the end of the preschool gymnastics class I take my two youngest children and we play hide and seek. Not a challenging task really as they, without fail, every week choose the same hiding place in the gym. However every week I wander around saying “I wonder where they could be, I don’t know where they could be hiding.” It is possible I am seeking God’s peace a bit like this, I may always be just looking for peace and not really seeking.
Then there’s the pursuit! Pursue = “An effort to secure or attain.”
My thoughts turn to Colossians where it says “let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts” (see Colossians 3.15) and I wonder if this Advent, this Christmas, we could let peace rule in our hearts instead of stress or festivities or expectations. Then we may just find it… and simply be!
I acknowledge that possibly it seems easier for me to say God is my portion of joy, my portion of love, my portion of glory than my portion of peace; but peace has been given to us and is ours to be thankful for.
What can I do? Though I don’t deserve what you have done for me.
What can I give to the one who gave his life that I may live?
What can I say to the one who gave me breath and spoke my name?
What can I offer, as you’re ‘the offering of love’?
Father, it transcends all my understanding
that I don’t have to give
or do
or say
or try again
or exhaust myself -
that I just have to be peaceful!
I just have to receive your peace
Your peace guards my heart
Father, in this moment as your peace saturates my soul
I thank you that your peace is mine and your peace flows like a river. Amen.
Login to comment.