Let there be peace. I believe it is one of the greatest gifts to us! To be able to navigate the world and the life we live within it? Well count me in! Why wouldn’t anyone grab a hold of peace?
It is possible to have peace despite struggles of life. It is not possible, however, to maintain peace easily. Or perfectly!
Belief brings faith
Please don’t stop reading. The struggle is real, dangerous and powerful. The only way to temper the struggle is with help; Faith is necessary to have peace! We are guaranteed the struggle, but we are also guaranteed peace!
The struggle is life and death. I am sure we can agree on that. Alone it seems we cannot have both with a measure of peace in our lives. For me, I would rather struggle to obtain peace than struggle with life. If we get to peace, life takes care of itself! If I’ve secured my eternity (death), calm enters my life! So easy yet complex – getting it from my head to my heart.
Fruits of the Spirit
The fruits of the spirit are (according to Galations 5:22), love, joy, peace, forbearance (tolerance), kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. These all come by accepting the gift of eternal life. That’s the easy part. Saying and accepting belief in the crucifixion of Christ.
The hard part is turning away from the things that grieve the Spirit (Galations 5:19-21); sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. All those things rob us of peace and the rest of the fruits of the Spirit!
Peace comes with belief
We all naturally seek worldly things from birth. It happens! I cannot explain why, other than the opportunity to have choice in life is important. So important, in fact, that choices control and navigates us. Our paths, circumstances, relationships, everything hinges on the choices we’ve mad over the period of our lives. We do not control how long our lives will be, fleshly death is for certain.
God naturally seeks us (Psalm 14:2). We attempt to fill the void of God with those things that grieve the Spirit. That, in turn, robs us of peace; real, genuine, life altering peace. Peace that calms our soul when we are sick, lose a loved one, have relationship or financial problems, etc.
Courage comes with peace
Acceptance and the belief through faith in the crucifixion of Jesus brings the Holy Spirit and his fruits. He intervenes on our behalf to God as well as in the choices we make. The first step is easy, belief through faith; everything that follows is peacefully hard.
It takes courage to make the harder choices in life. To discipline children and show them the correct steps; discerning wrong and right; choosing to give in to wrongful pleasures; helping someone who made a bad decision or someone that we are not particularly fond of. But every intentional choice we make through faith gives us a bigger footprint of peace.
Courage and eternity
Having the courage to believe, accepting the harder struggle, brings us a greater love for each other, compassion for others that struggle. We extend kindness to help others along the way. We chose to have patience and wear our faithfulness on our sleeve to be a light for others. Illuminating the path and being a stepping stone. Controlling our anger so that we refrain from uttering words of discouragement. Forgiving those that cause us to stumble and ourselves when we sin.
And peace that all is not lost, but found; acceptance of what we have no control over; faith in God that is consistent, all knowing, trustworthy, powerful, faithful to forgive us, encouraging, everlasting! JOY!
