Having Peace

Everyone has seen tragedy. Haiti, 911, the Holocaust... Few of us have faced such depth as tragedy as those listed, however, some form of strife has made it's way into all of our lives. For some it is the death of a loved one. For other, it may be a health related crisis. Others will face divorce or other personal trauma.

Tragedy comes as a part of life -- non-Christians and Christian alike. Details may vary, but the experience does not.

I have asked many times over life whether it's possible to have peace in the world we live in. Some people would say that peace is impossible, an ideal that we can work toward but never obtain. I, on the other hand, think that peace is entirely possible. Through experience though, I think that it can be difficult to acheive, and we usually seek it in the wrong way... Here are 3 suggestions I can make.

1. Understand that God is here
There are tons of 'God' bumper stickers out there, and there's one that I've seen that says "Know God, Know Peace. No God, No Peace". This is totally true. Without acknowledgement that there is a God, we will not have peace. That's why it's called the "peace of God" or "God's peace" in the Bible. At this moment, I can't explain it, but all I know is that "I've got the peace that passes understanding down in my heart".

2. Understand that God is aware
Jesus made a remarkable statement concerning this incredible attribute of the awareness of God in Matthew 10:29... Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. Honestly, God did not create this world and then turn His back on it; His is aware of what is going on, and we are alone in the struggles we are facing. He rejoices when he sees good, love and beauty. It breaks His heart when He sees strife; war and hatred, what we have done to this world.

3. Understand that God cares

Okay, so there's a God, but that's not enough to bring us peace. He's aware of what is going on., but still... Is that enough to bring peace in my life? A big tipping point for me is to know that God cares.

Not only is he with us, He knows us. He knows who each one of us is, and knows everything about us. He knows the numbers of hairs on each of our heads* and knows our every want and need. If He cares about the hairs on our heads to that degree of detail, I feel confident that He knows everything about us in all ways. David got it write when he wrote "O Lord, you have searched me and you know me"

If we are going to have peace in our lives it will only be when we genuinely realize that God not only knows whats best for us, but that He wants what is best for us. And then we have to take that belief and act upon it. We must step out in faith knowing that God is rooting for us and that He knows what He's doing.

Too often we second-guess God. It's almost like we say "Okay God. I love you, and I know you are in fact God. I know you are The Creator and the Ruler of the entire freakin' universe, but, I think in this case, I actually know the better thing to do." And so we do what we think is best and then when it all falls to pieces, we wonder what went wrong. It's funny that sometimes we look back and say, "Darn, if only I had done what God had wanted me to do..." God cares, and He sees a much bigger picture than we do (kinda like someone else I know--shout out!).

The life of a Christian isn't all quiet and contemplative. We face turmoil and trouble just like anyone else. But the wonder of it all is that, in the midst of all the troubled life that is crashing loudly around us, we can have peace! With the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, we can experience peace on a level that defies humans understanding (check out Philippians 4:7).

It means we can experience God's peace in our church. It means we can experience God's peace in our homes, even between parents and siblings. It means we can experience God's peace out in the world. Really, it means that we can experience God's piece in our hearts. It doesn't mean that any of these places are going to be perfect, but it means that in spite of that, we can have peace. Because true peace doesn't come from us, or anything the world can offer us - it comes from God.


*(side note: I've always wanted to ask...)

I've heard it in the chillest land

Hope Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune--without the words, And never stops at all, And sweetest in the gale is heard; And sore must be the storm That could abash the little bird That kept so many warm. I've heard it in the chillest land, And on the strangest sea; Yet, never, in extremity, It asked a crumb of me. Emily Dickinson

This is what my reality looks like...

Psalm 103:1-4

Praise the LORD, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits-who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion.


I have struggled so much in the last few years... Struggled with my self-esteem, struggled with how I see God, struggled with feeling so alone... Struggled with things I didn't have any control over, and things I caused. Struggled with things I didn't(and don't) even know I'm struggling with...

My mind has run rampant with pure and utter hatred that life isn't fair, and there isn't a logical reason for everything that happens. I've wrestled with the question 'why' and then 'why not' and still don't really have a grasp on any answers. I have felt a brokenness within me, that if not contained could very well break my spirit and leave me a shattered-shadow of a person.

As you can see, its been pretty rough.

Now I realize that its all a mixture of natural human emotion and very specific spiritual warfare... And in keeping that in mind, I know that I have to keep my eye on the prize, that I have to keep praising my God. I look at Job, and he refused to "curse God and die"...he kept his eyes towards heaven. I look within myself and see an ocean of possibilities and my only hope in this is God. So as I enter into what I am hoping to be a big turning point for me, I'm going to stand firm on God's truth that "sorrow may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning". I believe God is challenging me to hold on to my dreams and keep them close to my heart... Despite present circumstances.

So...what dreams am I holding on to.
At the moment... I don't know. I guess I want to grow up. I want to live close to my family and friends. I want to learn how to let myself smile again. My view has been clouded for so long but I promise you, that the sky is breaking and I can start to see the sun shine. I want to know people, be involved in their lives, listen to them and care about them. I want to be an example of God's Love to everyone around me. I want to love others, and I want to love myself...

So I can choose to be completely misreable and sad, and slide back into grieving...or I can choose to hold tight to my dreams, and get buckled in...because once you choose to believe in your dreams, God takes you on a wild ride. I'm sure that they'll be a few set-backs along the way, probably all due to me taking my eye off the prize...

But for now, I've shed enough tears... I'm choosing to buckle my seatbelt.

Actively Pursuing Hope...

I can't say how organized/unorganized this blog post is going to be. I am gathering my thoughts and stumbling through some new feelings I have.

I've always had a strong sense of faith. I've never really wondered about whether or not God exists, but I have had an increasing and alarming rise in hopelessness in my life over the past few months. I could sit and blame it on the timeline of things I was experiencing, I could blame it on my complete lack of quiet time with God, I could blame it on anything and everything.

But I'm choosing not to blame it on anything, I'm going to stand up and take full blame for this one. In my head I had let a rush of fears come in, clouding my vision of the future, and leading me to a lane of (almost) pure hopelessness. I have walked with an intense fear that I will never be the same, never feel 'normal' and never feel loved. I let this fear fill me more and more until I reached a crossroads. A crossroads where I could choose to continue in my destructive thought patterns or I could make the decision to Actively Pursue Hope (yay for conscious choice!)

So I'm trying. When my fears start to rise or the loneliness overwhelms to the point I feel as if I cannot breath, I push those thoughts out of my head. I am Choosing to pursue hope, to run after it full speed with my arms stretched open, reaching to grasp this beautiful unknown gift I have yet to fully understand, and the more I run after it the bigger it gets in my life. And until the next chapter of my life begins and my hope becomes reality, I am choosing to continue running after it without thought to the unknown I face.

"there is surely a future hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off"
-Proverbs 23:18
"Once you choose hope, anything's possible"
-Christopher Reeve
"Sanity may be madness but the maddest of all,
is to see life as it is, and not as it should be"
-Don Quixote
"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow"
-Albert Einstein
"Don't be afraid of the space between your dreams and reality,
If you can dream it, you can make it so"
-Belva Davis
"May the love hidden deep inside your heart
find the love waiting in your dreams.
May the laughter that you find in your tomorrow
Wipe away the pain in your yesterday"
-Unknown

For me, having hope for my future is definitely new territory for me. I wish I could pinpoint the exact moment where I reached my crossroads. Maybe it was watching the movie "Yes Man", where the main character who was lonely and living a pathetic life was radically changed when he began to actually try things he never had before. Maybe it was reading other peoples stories of healing. Maybe it was sitting down with some people I love and really realizing things need to change. I'm not sure if it was one thing in particular, but through the progression of things in my life lately, I can see a clear, and wonderful future for myself. A future full of love, restoration and Hope!


I'll try to keep you updated... :]

Rejoice

Philippians 4:4-7 (ESV) says

"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your reasonableness
be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but
in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be
made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will
guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

I've heard the "Rejoice in the Lord always" part time and time again. Not being the sort of person who finds it easy to rejoice part-time, let alone always, it kinda baffles me. Okay, baffled isn't quite the right word there, it pretty much goes in one ear, out the other. “You don’t know what I’ve been through” is one of the first things that comes to mind.

In writing, context is everything, and it makes a world of difference here. The next few verses make the ‘rejoice’ part real. The Lord is here. God is with us, everywhere, from school to our dark bedrooms at night. In sickness and health, for better or worse, for richer or poorer (I was just at a wedding, pops into mind)…. We shouldn’t be anxious (for God is right here), but in everything pray, and ask God with humbleness whatever it is we need to ask.
But in everything, pray. Sounds so easy, but for many, it’s a pretty hard thing. Believe me, I know that praying can be really difficult. Most of the time I have no idea what to pray about or, more often, how to pray. A number of years ago, I read this bit from Romans.

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we
ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that
words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the
Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's
will.

In my weakness, which is really the level I operate on regularly, I know I don't pray what I should, and I know I pray things sarcastically and full of "but" statements. Or I just don’t pray at all. What an amazing, comforting thing to know the Holy Spirit takes the groanings of our deepest selves to God. And the Spirit does it in a way that lines up with what God would have for us.
It’s in my weakness that I do not know what to pray. It's in my weakness that I get hung up on not knowing. But it is in my weakness that the cries of my soul are taken to God. It is in the times when we groan at the very thought of rejoicing that our groans are carried to the ears of Christ. And it is in that time of vulnerability that the will of God is carried out in our lives, whether we know it or not. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus. The Spirit takes the cries of our broken spirits to the Father, and leaves instead the peace of God in its place. That alone is reason to rejoice.

Words words words...

Over the past week or so, I've been doing a fair amount of thinking... More than usual. Which is saying something, because personally, I think I think a lot.

I was thinking about stuff I already knew. Things I thought I knew, and understood. After looking back on that thinking, I'm not sure I really did understand things...

I've been a Christian for a long time, relative to the time I've been around. As long as I can remember, I've known there's a God. For the majority of the time, I've known that God loves me. I've been told that Jesus was raised from the dead and He took the punishment for our sins--Everyone's sins. And I've talked, I've been told, I've sung, and I've prayed about hope. A kind of 'Christian hope'.

But, I've often struggled with hope. Struggled to have it, or understanding why I have it... Thinking my hope is foolish, or wanting not to have hope. Being a Christian, though... Hope is kinda a big thing (deja vu... pretty sure I've said that before). So, like I said, over the past few days I've been thinking, and here are some of my 17 year-old thoughts on 'Christian hope'.

Hope is found in the risen Christ. Suffering is not removed by his resurrection, but transformed by it. His resurrection kills even the power of death, and promises that God will wipe away every tear in the end. But we still have tears (and are allowed to have them) in the present. We still die. In God's future, though, death will die.

The hope of the Resurrection is not optimism, isn't saying 'everything on earth is ok', but it keeps the Christian facing ever toward the future, not dwelling in the present, like we so often get stuck doing. It does not take away pain, or make pain any less, or say 'get over it' but just that... one day it will be beaten.

And I truly believe that.

Post #9 (for lack of creativity)

(Okay, I would like to caution all potential readers... All my thoughts might not be fully fleshed out. My brain is overflowing at the moment, and its hard to sort things out when the thoughts just keep bubbling over... Anyways, with that, proceed with caution...)

Waiting is hard for us (at least it is for me), because we have gotten used to having what we want and having it now. When we don’t get 'it' we feel angry and frustrated.
But if we can learn to wait and hope, it will shape our lives.
Instead of settling for what I have, and trying to make myself comfortable, I want to be willing to put up with discomfort, with not belonging, even with suffering because this is not it.
I long for the day when justice and mercy will be seen in all the earth, when God will wipe away every tear. I pray “Your Kingdom Come”.
And we celebrate the glimpses of it, the stories of it and the echoes of it. We love selflessness, generosity, grace, and mercy because these things are 'kingdom things'...

Recently I have been asked (quite a number of times, actually) what I hope for. I usually say that I try to stay away from hope, because I don't want to be let down. Not until recently have I realized that this isn't necessarily true... Maybe I try to stay away from 'wishing' for things, or having dreams, but, not having hope? That sounds scary.

So, over the past few days, 'hope' has been on my mind. You see the word everywhere... 'Hope' has begun to be used more loosely than it used to, often seen as synonymous for 'wish', which is something that I commonly do, although I'm not sure it is entirely correct...

Tonight I was talking to a few friends, getting their opinion on the 2 words as well... Here are some things that I (and friends) have thought on 'hope' and 'wish'...
Wish us more immediate, on a finite time line. Hope is sometime in the future, with no limitations on time. Wish is flimsy, no solid reasoning behind it. Hope has desire, it is beyond proof, and a belief that something, or someone, could make it happen.

Hope can be both a noun and a verb... 'I have hope...' vs. 'I hope...'. I think, as a Christian, I have hope. And a strong hope, which could be said to be faith.

A Christian with no hope? Impossible, if you ask me.

Waiting. Hoping. Longing. Wishing.

Confusing.

"Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget that, until the day God deigns to reveal the future to man, the sum of all human wisdom will be contained in these two words: Wait and hope." --Alexandre Dumas