I feel like we live in a society where peace is nearly unattainable. It's that thing that is just out of our reach. We all are grasping for it, sometimes touching it with the tips of our fingers, but just missing it.
And I'm not talking about world peace here. I'm talking about personal peace. The feeling you can have when sitting all alone in a quiet room--and your heart is satisfied. Or, the feeling you can have when you lay your head on the pillow at night and close your eyes--and there is a silence within you. Nothing is screaming out, pounding within your brain, or causing sleep to be elusive.
Oh, and just so you know, I am talking to myself here even more than I am talking to you. I run around half the time like a crazed woman--dashing out the door multiple times a week, yelling, "HURRY, girls. Forget that and GET IN THE CAR RIGHT NOW."
I fill my days so utterly full of STUFF--lessons and carpools and cooking last-minute dinners and schoolwork and exercising and refereeing fights and emailing and grocery shopping--that I leave no room for peace. My checklist is a mile long. How could peace exist when I'm continually running to the next item on the list?
Just recently I heard a wonderful message about peace. Dr. Kerry Skinner spoke to our church, and when he mentioned Isaiah 32:17, something resonated inside me. I grabbed my daughter's lime green pen and scribbled it down.
The fruit of that righteousness will be peace;
its effect will be quietness and confidence forever.
-Isaiah 32:17
Does the word "peace" have the same effect on you, as it does me? The word almost washes over me when I say it. Just like the verse above says--"its effect will be quietness and confidence forever." Who wouldn't want that?
Dr. Skinner said that people look to relieve stress in people, places, success, and busyness. And for a while, those things can fill the need, and help us feel good. I know busyness is a huge one for me. As long as I'm busy, I don't notice the nagging voice inside me. Or--being a little vulnerable here--give me a good book, and I can drown out the pounding inside my brain for a while. Especially if I can read until I fall asleep.
What about you? How do you avoid the stress, the nagging voice inside you, or the pounding in your brain?
In other words, how do you find peace?
What does the verse mean...How do I get that "fruit of righteousness," so that I can attain peace?
Flickr photo credit: Mark Fischer
