It starts with me

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid - John 14:27

It is common to say a place is peaceful, especially quiet and isolated places. We often associate quiet with peace. As an introvert, this line of thought is even more elevated for me. Subconsciously, it is easy to mistake quiet for peace, quiet people as peaceful people, and quiet places as peaceful places. If only it were so. For example, intensive care units tend to be quiet on the surface while it could be filled with pain and unease. On the other hand there is the example of Jesus, who lived peaceably with one of his closest friends even though He knew Judas was going to betray Him. How was Jesus able to hold His peace under such circumstances?

I remember a tumultuous season in my life when everything in the physical seemed hopeless. I remember praying earnestly that God would give me peace in the midst of my hopelessness. Almost immediately after uttering those words of prayer, I heard the Lord clearly say, "I am your peace". As time and the years have gone by, I have come to understand God's answer a little better. Jesus as my peace means that my peace is not situational or conditional. Neither is it geographical. It is positional, my position in Jesus. We cannot control what other people do that may be chaotic. However in Christ, we have capacity to hold and maintain our peace in the face of unrest.

Peace is promised and peace is already available to us if we reach for it. I have had the privilege of holding my peace in chaotic times and I have also experienced the affliction of caving into the chaos around me. The former experience is indescribably pure and powerful, it is also the example we saw Jesus exemplify to us again and again. So, what did Jesus do to maintain His peace and how can we too? Here are a couple of ways we can follow Jesus' example.

1. In Matthew 11, Jesus taught the disciples to pray and receive grace and provision (including peace) for each day. Jesus practiced this way of being, He was always present in the moment and focused on the person and task on hand. This way of life is probably the only way Jesus maintained His peace with Judas. In managing difficult personalities and relationships, it is therefore important to limit the effect of that interaction to that moment or day. One of the ways we can do this is to practice forgiveness and letting go. Forgiveness includes i.acknowledging the situation, ii.) how it made us feel iii.) saying a prayer including the first two steps and verbally declaring forgiveness. "Give us this day" means acknowledging the events of each day and giving them to God. As Jesus said in Matthew 6:34, "“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble."

2. Jesus lived a life of prayer. Mark 1:35 says, "Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed" This lifestyle of prayer encompasses self-care and dependence on God and it teaches us to do the same. i.) make time for yourself before the day starts putting its demand on you, ii.) make prayer (gratitude, dependence on God, reflection, rejuvenation, re-calibration, strategy, repentance, purpose, and more) a priority before doing "other" things in the day. Prayer, when done in total submission to God, centers us and keeps us grounded.

A peaceful world starts with me and you.