Peace

What does it mean when peace becomes an action?

As someone who has struggled with anxiety all of my life, the word “peace” is loaded with possibilities. But what if peace is more than a feeling?

Recently I heard someone say instead of "peace keeping" we should pursue "peace making." In my mind, peace-keeping is avoidance--of which I am definitely guilty--in hopes that things will somehow fade away on their own; but peace-making is an action that requires understanding, compassion, and, sometimes, really hard conversations that involve grace and truth. I think this is one of those skills that we will be pruning and developing throughout our lifetime via the grace of God.

"Shalom," the Hebrew word for peace, is used in a few different ways in scripture, but "most fundamentally, shalom means reconciliation with God." (Keller) We see the perfect representation of shalom in the way God has reconciled himself to us through Jesus. When we pursue peace with our neighbor, we are called to do the same: to look at how Jesus engages in relationship with us and emulate it. On this earth we will be imperfect in this, but I believe the more we know and worship Jesus the more we see the fruit that results from His work in us.

Jesus says in John 14:27, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives." The peace that Christ offers to us looks different from the peace of the world. Right now I'm learning that it's not about a fleeting state of mind; it is a continual pursuit of right relationship-- a mirror of the right relationship that Jesus created for us on the cross.