PEACE

You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you (Isaiah 26:3 NLT).

The prophet said God keeps in perfect peace those who trust him. What is the difference between perfect peace and a not-so-perfect peace? How does God offer us perfect peace? Are we so content with a mediocre kind of peace that it entices God to offer us a peace that will make us exclaim, "It’s perfect!"?

The most perfect peace I have ever felt was when I was in the airborne stage of a motorcycle accident where I missed a sharp turn and ultimately crashed at the bottom of a cliff. So I know from experience that perfect peace is not merely the absence of conflict or stupidity.

Every online dictionary I looked at this week referred to peace as tranquility such as when there is no war. One site however, suggested that no war was an external kind of peace, but that there is also inner peace which is of the soul.

I believe that external and internal peace are often dependent. A preacher who was struggling with depression and the news of wars around the world and too close to his homeland for comfort, wrote a poem to get people to focus their hearts and minds on the things of God even in the midst of a “weary world.” It wasn’t until later that the poem would be turned into the Christmas carol we know as, “It Came Upon A Midnight Clear.” The good news is that angels are singing now, even as we experience war that for most of us is, “too close for comfort.” But in the discomfort, the angels still sing just as they did when Jesus was born, and just as they will throughout the year, “when peace shall over all the earth its ancient splendors fling, and the whole world give back the song which now the angels sing.”

Where is your peace? Are you willing to receive Jesus this Christmas season as your source of perfect peace?

Prayer

Precious Father, thank you that Jesus is our source of peace regardless of what may be happening around us. Remind us again at this time of year that the only real peace we have is in you. Thank you for Jesus. Thank you for the angels’ song of peace which you bring to us each and every day, if we are willing to receive you. Amen.

(Reference: Wikipedia.)