It's there for the seeking

   Peace is out there.  It's available.  It's a real thing. But it's not something you just fall into or are handed on a silver platter.  It takes seeking, searching out.  It's progressive, but in the seeking there is finding not only peace but the promises that come with those who seek peace- a  Future.
   We reward people for DOING something: you get paid for the hours you work, you reward your kids with a family ice cream party when they finish a school book or grade in school, you give them a treat when they finish cleaning their rooms, etc.  The reward is tied to the accomplishment - pursuing something to its end goal.  However, if you got the reward for nothing, given money regularly without working for it, it would lose its value. We don't tend to utilize well or appreciate things received lightly, easily.  We take them for granted, thereby bypassing the true blessing of that reward and squandering it.
   I think that's why we have to seek out peace and any good thing, to appreciate it and utilize it well.  If we are given something before it's time, before we've sought it out, wrestled for it, we could end up like Israel: obtaining what we want be in exchange having leanness of soul\.  It would end up taking from us much more than it gave and the very thing we wanted would destroy us because we're not ready to carry the weight and responsibility of it.
  What if King George had walked away from America, had given the land to the colonists without a fight - they had a peaceable transition of power?  Would we as a fledgling nation have been able to formulate such a solid government structure, known what we wanted and didn't want and wrestled over big ideas that changed a world if we had obtained it lightly? Would we have appreciated peace, had we not wartime first?
   Sometimes in the midst of seeking, of desperately needing it and wanting it, it's hard not to be resentful when peace or that thing we are seeking seems so intangible, so far away.  I'm reminding myself that there's a purpose in the seeking, there's a growth, a deeper level of understanding and need and will be a deeper appreciation and experience of the many facets of peace as it is revealed and walked out.  Not that life is absent of it or that there aren't great blessings of supernatural peace in difficult situations along the way, but I want to learn to walk in it 24-7, unshaken, unshakable.
  Isaac Newton new what it meant to have to fight for everything he wanted or pursued in life and wrote this hymn out of the struggle. His story Story of Isaac Watts


Beautiful rendition of song
Am I a Soldier of the Cross

1 Am I a soldier of the cross,
a foll'wer of the Lamb?
And shall I fear to own His cause
or blush to speak His Name?

2 Must I be carried to the skies
on flow'ry beds of ease,
while others fought to win the prize
and sailed through bloody seas?

3 Are there no foes for me to face?
Must I not stem the flood?
Is this vile world a friend to grace
to help me on to God?

4 Sure I must fight, if I would reign;
increase my courage, Lord;
I'll bear the toil, endure the pain,
supported by Thy Word.

5 Thy saints in all this glorious war
shall conquer, though they die;
they see the triumph from afar
by faith's discerning eye.

6 When that illustrious day shall rise,
and all Thine armies shine
in robes of vict'ry through the skies,
the glory shall be Thine.

Peace, a matter of perspective

I've been pondering over, meditating on, searching out Psalm 119: 161-168 "Princes persecute me without cause. but my heart stands in awe of Your Word. I rejoice at Your Word as one who finds great treasure.  I hate and abhor lying but I love Your law.  Seven times a day I praise You because of Your righteous judgments.   Great PEACE have those who love Your law, and nothing causes them to stumble. Lord, I hope for your salvation, and I do Your commandments. My soul keeps Your testimonies, and I love them exceedingly.  I keep Your precepts and Your testimonies, for all my ways are before You."  
   I've wrestled over what this tells me about PEACE.  His life isn't at PEACE  - as he has those in authority and those who should be supporting him, persecuting him.  This isn't a PEACE coming from restful, easy circumstances, but one banked on the nature of GOD and His Word.  All the craziness around him, the persecution takes a back seat, does not consume his focus and vision, but his heart, his eyes, his attitude are set on the UNCHANGEABLE, that which is and always will be GOOD and RIGHT.  As he sets his heart on GOD's Word, he finds hope, PEACE, sure footing and faith that with GOD, in the end, you always win. 
  Being the anniversary of my brother, Jeremiah Small, being murdered in Iraq this week, I've naturally been thinking a lot about him and his life and the events surrounding his death.  No one looking on would describe what happened as peaceful, but as far as he was concerned, he went out with peace.  He was praying, eyes closed, focus on the Faithful One, and as shots rang out, he was instantly transported into His presence.  His life was completely in GOD's hands, and in a moment, GOD took him. 
    In my day to day, I'm reminded that my PEACE isn't dependent on a well structured, restful, happy, placid environment.  Not that those things aren't very nice! But if I waited for that to walk in PEACE, I would spend most of my days in frustration.  PEACE in the day to day, in the midst of turmoil and trouble or just the busyness of young children and a busy household, must solely be dependent on my focus.  On my heart, my focus being on that which changes not based on external circumstances or feelings, but is Truth.  Praise, loving what is good, placing hope in Him, walking in obedience to the One who orders all things rightly and sees me. 
  This week my focus verse at CC in Essentials was Gen 16:13  She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.”  I was struck again that both seeing Him rightly and seeing that He sees us to look upon us with compassion makes all the difference in our perspective on life and our situation.  I'm reminded over an over lately that our perception of our experiences - the way we see things, and the way we feel about things can lie.  It's like a distorted reflection that can be changed by putting your finger in the water.  Our feelings can change so quickly, that to base decisions upon them can lead us to dark and dangerous places, because Satan knows how to use our feelings against us, but if we set our eyes one the One who sees and sees rightly, we will begin not only to see rightly but to feel rightly.

story behind the hymn
Fox news version of Jeremiah's story   
Song
WORLD on Jeremiah Small