Hi everyone 🙂 Sorry the Mindful Monday devotion is a little late this week. I got busy with laundry and cleaning my bedroom and time got away from me. I did set a reminder on my cell phone to remind myself, but the app I used doesn’t have an alarm when it pops up the reminder, so the reminder didn’t do much good since I was busy and not looking at my phone 🙂 (clearly I need a new app) 🙂
Anyhoo…this week’s devotion is on “making peace”. There’s so much talk in the world today about “the peace process”, “aiming for peace in the Middle East”, peace signs are popular with our youth again as they were when I was a kid (I never did like them…to me they look more like an upside down broken cross…totally counter productive to what a Christian should think of as a symbol of peace, but that’s just me 🙂 ).
There are so many places in our own lives we would benefit from making peace with that I don’t have time or space in this blog post to name them all 🙂 The first thing most of us would think of when we hear the term “make peace” is wishing for a world without war, right? There are other areas, however, and a few examples would be making peace with ourselves –our looks, our social status, our finances, in regard to the opposite sex, our age and so forth. Have YOU made peace with YOU? (Honestly, I’ve come a long way, but I still have a long way to go on that one). We should make peace with others in our lives we care about. Friends who let us down, our spouse from time to time, our children. Oh, that’s another one for me come to think of it. I need some serious prayer time when I hit “publish” on this post 🙂 I need to make peace with my son’s disability. In all honesty, that is a process, not a destination. My son has autism and is very well behaved and very present, but totally non-verbal, so he can’t tell me how his day was, what he ate for lunch, or(and this is the worst one for me) say “mommy, I love you.” I adore my son and am so blessed to be his mommy. He’s so sweet, so loving, and fun, so low-maintenance in terms of 10-year olds and particularly 10 year olds with autism. But I need to make peace with the moments when we’re out and about and there are kids his age who can speak and function normally. Those are the moments the proverbial knife plunges deep into the recesses of this mother’s heart. I worry about his future should something happen to me or my husband. Those are moments that I get a gentle tug on my heart from the Holy Spirit asking me, “Do you trust Me, Helen?” I sheepishly answer, “Lord, I trust You, but help me trust You more.” I’m not too bashful to admit I fail Him in the peace department. I get that plunged knife feeling and I worry about Evan’s future, and maybe I selfishly have those thoughts about wondering if Evan speaks in his dreams, what would Evan say if he could speak? Who would be his friends if he were a “typical” (we don’t say “normal” in club autism) 10 year old kid? Would he play little league? Would he want to go camping like I did growing up….I could go on, but I won’t 🙂
Bottom line…I need to make peace. I need to continue on my process of trusting the Lord knowing that He doesn’t make mistakes and Evan’s autism and my motherhood of an autism child did not take Him by surprise. He has a plan for it all whether I can see the blueprints of that plan or not. I need to make peace with the woman in the grocery store who tries to talk to Evan and when he just looks at her and hums she gives me this look like my child is “weird”. I need to make peace with knowing the Lord has my back in all areas of my life. I KNOW He does, but He needs to remind me way too often, I’m sure. There’s a group of ladies I used to be a part of I need to make peace with. A group I used to see as a haven of fellowship but who thinks I should have it all together because they don’t want to hear about it anymore, I’m told. A group of Christian women. I carry hurt and anger about that situation, and I need to make peace with it for the sake of my walk with the Lord and for the sake of my testimony for sure, whether fellowship is renewed or not. I need to make peace. I need to make peace with my pastor who told me after I asked him to counsel my family that, “It wouldn’t do any good.” Huh?… What would Jesus do? Anyway…
Do you have people or situations in your life YOU need to make peace with? Sometimes we can get peace confused with forgiveness. Peace is the result of forgiveness for sure, but peace is an ongoing effort…a process, I think.
Bottom line…whether in the Middle East or under your own roof or Bible study group, there will BE no peace without the Prince of Peace. Jesus said this:
“Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful. You heard that I said to you, ‘I go away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved Me, you would have rejoiced because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.…” John 14:27-28
True peace is the peace Jesus gives us. He says we should rejoice because he went to the Father. That’s because going to the father, He ever lives to make intercession for us WITH the Father (Hebrews 7:25) and that will give us the only peace that will ever last. If you are a blood-bought believer in Jesus, His blood covers your sins and when the Father looks at you, He doesn’t see the sin you’ve committed in your life that used to separate you from Him. He sees the blood of Christ that was shed in YOUR PLACE, FOR YOU. He has made you right with the Father and every day He ministers on your behalf as He is seated next to the Father and while the Holy Spirit resides within you giving you that peace that passes all understanding (Philippians 4:7). He IS our peace.
He says we should be at peace because He is coming again, and Titus 2:13 says that is our blessed hope. Hope is first cousin to peace. I myself cling to the fact that this life is not all there is. This life is a training ground for eternity. It’s just preparing us to be the kind of people we should be for the Kingdom of God. Jesus could come back before I publish this post and none of my fears and concerns would matter anymore. I will have to answer for any unforgiveness I harbor in my heart and I should focus on getting making peace so I am not ashamed at His coming:
“And now, dear children, remain in fellowship with Christ so that when he returns, you will be full of courage and not shrink back from him in shame.” -1 John 2:28
If you are a blood-bought believer, Jesus bought your peace with the Father. If He can lay down His life and was resurrected and ascended to the Father where he ministers on our behalf every single day…if you have the Holy Spirit residing within you from the moment of that salvation Jesus died to give you, there’s nothing too impossible to make peace with.
Jesus is the Prince of Peace and there will BE no peace in THIS world until He returns again (some day SOON, I believe!). Until then…the only true peace we will have is through Him. There will be NO peace in the Middle East until Jesus comes back, and there will be no true peace in your world without Him guiding you through it.
Have you made peace with God by receiving the gift Jesus offers you?
