Words from WW Blog

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                    April 18, 2016

Peace is a highly valued condition seldom understood and, most of the time, awkwardly explained. It is searched for like the Holy Grail, elusive to find and fleeting when experienced. It gets treated like a chemical formula…two parts this and one part that…but it’s not confined or easily defined.

Sometimes peace is experienced in the knowing, finding out a diagnosis and having a sense of peace about it. Sometimes peace takes a long time in the arriving. I remember standing beside the hospital bed of a young mother who had just lost her unborn baby. It took a long time for her and her husband to have peace about the loss. They grieved a long journey and asked a lot of questions that mostly began with the word “why?”

But sometimes peace comes in the lack of clarity. It’s the sensing that things are going to be okay no matter the outcome. It is the best kind of peace, because it is not dependent on what someone says or does, how circumstances play out, achievement or rejection. It’s walking into the fog that often descends along the banks of the Ohio River without reservations.

Peace gets linked up with happiness like they are twin sisters, but happiness is more like a distant cousin who shows up at weddings and reunions.

Recently I experienced a sense of peace in a time of uncertainty. There was a decision that was to be made by a committee that affected me. I knew that the decision was out of my control, and, remarkable as it sounds, I had peace about it regardless of the outcome. The disappointment in the news was minimal, as would have been the excitement in a decision that was positive.

Those moments of unclear peace are few and far between. Perhaps it is because I’m getting older…and older…but I view those times as ways that God redirects us. We’re prone to struggle against the wind instead of going with it. That doesn’t mean that everything is going to be cheesecake and champagne (or since I’m Baptist, Baptist champagne…otherwise known as 7-Up!), but experiencing peace is never discovered when we keep a death-like control grip of our life direction. It’s letting God chair the meeting, but knowing that he will always involve you in the dialogue.

I’ve experienced what the Bible says about peace. It surpasses all understanding. That’s comforting, knowing that today is also “Tax Day”, and the IRS got another kind of “piece” from me!

This entry was posted on April 18, 2016 at 3:29 pm and is filed under Bible, Christianity, Faith, Holy Spirit, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: Baptist, Baptist champagne, inner peace, Ohio River fog, Peace, peace about decisions, the peace that surpasses all understanding, unclear