Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.
Colossians 3:15
Peace? Why do we want peace? Why do we need peace? What’s the problem with the way things are? After all, evolution tells us that things are getting better and better. More and more advanced. Everything’s evolving to something higher. Better. Better adapted. Smarter.
But is that what we see and experience in life? I don’t know about you, but I see the exact opposite. Things in general are getting worse. All you have to do is nothing and your kitchen seems to go from clean to unclean. From organized to wildly unorganized.
And how do you make it clean and organized again? Do you just snap your fingers and rooms magically clean themselves up? Things automatically get put neatly away? Is life like the movie Mary Poppins when they sing A Spoonful of Sugar[1]?
Just the opposite is what we experience each and every day of our lives. Our bodies are getting older all the time. Things break down. If you do nothing, everything, and I mean everything, wears out. Get’s old. Stops working the way it was made to. Dies.
And yet, we want something different. We deeply long for a life where everyone and everything is living together peacefully. Growing together in harmony with one another. Like pieces of a puzzle, everyone and everything fits together. Supports one another. Completes a picture that’s bigger than any individual piece. But that’s not the way things are. Is it? Things are broken. Pulled apart. Cut into pieces. Torn apart.
Peace it the repair of things, The renewal of life. The rebuilding of the pieces that have been torn down. The refurbishment of all the different pieces of life. Peace takes the brokenness of this life and put it back together the way it was originally made to be. When the peace of Christ rules in our hearts, it doesn’t mean that everything’s going to be easy. That you’re going to win every time. That everything’s going to be great. That everything’s going to come up roses.
There’s no 100% guarantee that when you go in for your next blood tests that your cholesterol and sugar won’t go up. Or when you go to the doctor that they won’t hear something in your heart. Or feel a lump. Or see something odd growing on your skin.
It’s also not a guarantee that you’re never going to make a bad decision. Make a choice that causes hurt and harm to your family and the ones you love. There’s no promise that life won’t jump up and hit you in the mouth, knocking out a couple of teeth either.
Christ ruling in our hearts is like he’s the umpire. Whenever there’s a conflict inside or outside of us, he’s the one that we’re to turn to. The one we’re to look to guide us. To give us directions where to go next. To let us know he’s still in control.
I have a little secret for you. Life’s hard and it’s going to get hard. It’s not going to get better. It’s going to get more demanding. Struggling each and every day is what’s on the menu of life. And there’s nothing else to choose from.
Why do I say this? It’s not to be some kind of killjoy who only writes doom and gloom. I’m not here to take the edge off of feeling good. If you were to cut me, you’d see that I bleed optimism. I’m a happy kind of guy deep inside.
Just to let you know, I’m just a normal guy who’s got a lot of miles behind them. Actually, I’ve got many more miles behind me than I do ahead of me. I’ve seen and experienced my fair share of life. I’ve had my highs and lows. The good and the bad.
I’m not trying to take you down emotionally. To be a buzzkill. To take the edge off from feeling good. But we really do need to face the facts of the world we live in and the life that we’re living.
Eventually, one of us is going to be the only one in the funeral parlor. Everyone we know and love is going to be dead. The question is what’s going to give us joy in this life? What’s going to give us the energy and motivation to live well? And not just today but for all the days of our life?
It’s not sitting at a bar looking for your next drink. For your next one-night stand. It’s not the next pill to ease your pain and emptiness. Or the next needle either. It’s not the next guru with their empty promises of an inner peace that they can’t deliver.
So, who can bring this peace to our empty hearts? The one who predicted that he’d walk out of an empty tomb. And then did it. His tomb is empty so our hearts don’t have to be. His resurrection from the dead is proof that he’s overcome death once and for all.
We don’t have to be empty any longer. We can be at peace with ourselves. With God. With one another. And with this life. We can face the brokenness and disconnections of this life because, in Jesus, everything’s being put back together again. Being made new[2]. Being the umpire of our life, of our peace, is why Jesus came for you and me. He’s done it all. Our response is to give him ourselves for who he is. For all he’s done.
Noodling Questions
In what area of life do we most need peace? Why?
When life gets hard, why is it so easy to abandon peace?
What does God’s kind of peace look like?
[2] Revelation 21:5
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