Peace in Our Time

“I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.”
John 14:27

My morning started out peacefully—at least for the first few hours.  As everyone got ready for their day, I was able to read a passage of Scripture and spend time praying.  I even got a little exercise in before it was time to get some work accomplished.  Yet as I sat down at my computer, an unpleasant email caught my attention.  People were upset with each other, and I couldn’t help but get distressed in the process of reading the unkind words I discovered in that written communiqué.

Suddenly my peace was shattered, and it was only mid-morning.

Can you relate?  How many peaceful days are turned upside down by unsettling news, startling revelations, angry communication, or conflicting people?  And peace-wrecking doesn’t have to come from inside our personal circles of influence any more.  The television beams calamitous information our way 24/7, and thanks to technological advances, our tranquility can even be broken by instant messaging, texts and tweets popping up on all of our devices!

The disciples got a taste of the unfortunate reality of living in a far-from-perfect world when the Jesus shared these facts with them:

“I have told you these things so that you won’t abandon your faith.  For you will be expelled from the synagogues, and the time is coming when those who kill you will think they are doing a holy service for God. This is because they have never known the Father or me.  Yes, I’m telling you these things now, so that when they happen, you will remember my warning. I didn’t tell you earlier because I was going to be with you for a while longer.”  (John 16:1-4)

Yikes—talk about disturbing news!  In John 16, Jesus plainly explained to the disciples that His departure was eminent, and when He returned to His heavenly Father after He was resurrected, they’d experience a lot of negative fallout.  In fact, the religious leaders and others would reject them and even try to kill them.  Their faith in the Lord would have consequences here on Earth because those who didn’t accept what God had done through Jesus Christ would turn against them—along with all the evil the enemy could muster (see Ephesians 6:10-12).

Yet Jesus also reminded His disciples—and all of us today—that He didn’t share this message without a bigger, much brighter purpose:   ^“I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

That’s right, despite the difficult times “you will have,” Jesus urges us to “take heart!”  We can, and should, be at peace because He has overcome sin and death and their eternal consequences.  We have hope that the Lord is with us now, and we will be with Him for all eternity!

While it may seem counterintuitive to us as humans, peace doesn’t happen in isolation of problems and pain.  Divine peace happens with them—in the midst of crazy circumstances, crises, and chaos.  As much as I may not like it, that’s when I truly experience God’s peace at work in my life.  When I can’t control the mess and everything seems topsy-turvy, the Lord’s peace resides if I’m willing to focus on Him, and Him alone.

I’m not sure what’s interrupted your peace lately—or what’s lurking to disrupt it in the near future.  What I can assure you of is that, as the verse from John 14 above points out, we can experience peace in our time.  It’s a gift, generously offered by a loving God who is waiting for us to ask Him for that blessing in our lives.  Oh may we receive His amazing peaceful presence today!

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