Peace is a choice

I've been invited to participate in the "25 days for peace" project. I'm behind on posting through my own site, so hoping this kickstarts my writing!!!  

 Dec 1...

Today is day 1 of the “25 days of peace” writing journey I’ve agreed to take with my sweet friend Josh and ironically today I don’t feel peace. Today I feel total unrest in my heart.  We’re entering the holidays in full swing and with it bring mixed emotions, compounded by divorced family and scheduling and money and broken dreams. Holidays for me represent a ball of jumbled mess and with a covering of “Just smile and survive!”  Peace is nowhere to be found in that holiday mess. And yet, as Christians, we are reminded, especially at Christmas, of the very real Peace God represents. 

Over the past 2 days I keep hearing the same phrase “My peace I give to you.” It doesn’t take much observing of our world to see we are collectively far from peace. An observer of the Church would conclude the Church is far from peace as well. So, when Jesus told his disciples in John 13 “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” he knew TODAY was going to take place and yet the confidence in His words gives me reason to pause. 

So, how can He be so confident in His peace knowing the chaos that would consume our Earth and more specifically our lives—2000 years after Jesus was here? In all those years I don’t think we can find ONE year that was void of some sort of unrest, I don’t think we can find ONE family that oozed total peace so how could Jesus say He was leaving peace with us? 

It’s rather simple actually. The answer is found within his words…”not as the world gives”… any time we are looking to people, to things, even to ourselves to find peace, to find that “sigh, this is better” kind of feeling, we will come up short every single time. And yet we do it. I do it. The past two days I’ve been guilty of it big time, turning to others for answers, turning to chocolate for comfort, turning to absolutely anything BEFORE I responded to the words being whispered in my heart “My peace I give to you.”

The holidays bring a certain level of chaos that I cannot do anything about, the world is in a true state of unrest that I cannot do anything about, The Church is filled with conflict that I cannot do anything about—what I CAN do is choose my response to all of that. When I’m tempted to get frustrated, when I’m tempted to feel hopeless, when I’m tempted to be discouraged I can remember that the only true peace I’ll find is within the arms of the Man that gave his life for me. And in that I can respond from a place of patience, of peace, and regardless of the unrest around me, I can be a person of peace because I know, with all that I am, that I have God’s peace within me, around me, and protecting me. 

So, my challenge to you, my friend, is to choose this day whom you will serve—the chaos and unrest that surrounds you or the Peace that can be found through Jesus Himself. And then, let your words, your actions, and your thoughts reflect your choice. The holidays are whatever perspective YOU choose.