God Is Peace

God Is Peace

If you love me, obey my commandments.

John 14:15

So much of the life of faith is counterintuitive. We are told that in order to have life, we need to surrender our lives; that the first shall be last and the last first; that the greatest of all will be the servant of all; that happiness consists of giving and not getting; that if someone strikes one cheek, we should turn the other cheek for the next blow. The gospel contradicts our most basic instincts, our notions of how the world should work. And so we resist and rationalize and delay our obedience, wondering why God’s peace eludes us.

But we have our moments—times when we do make the sacrifices God asks. Philip Yancey describes such times in his own life, saying, “I have learned that when I choose to follow Jesus, in ways large or small, what seems like a sacrifice actually turns into a benefit: I am the one who benefits. When I swallow my pride and apologize to someone I’ve wronged, I feel a flood of relief. When I give anonymously, as Jesus commanded, I experience more satisfaction. When I resist temptation and invest instead in the hard work of marriage, I gain. As [Thomas] Merton expressed it, ‘The gift of ourselves in total submission to God is a sacrifice in which, far from losing anything, we gain everything and recover, in a more perfect mode of possession, even what we seem to have lost. For at the very moment when we give ourselves to God, God gives Himself to us.’”^a

Trusting God enough to obey him opens up a space for more of his presence within us, and that presence brings us the peace we long for. Today let us seek that peace by first seeking to do God’s will, regardless of what he asks.

Father, open my eyes to the places in my heart that still resist you. Forgive me for all the decisions I make that are based on assuming that my ways are better than yours. Help me to love you enough to obey you, embracing the example of your Son, my Lord, Jesus Christ.

^a Philip Yancey, Rumors of Another World: What on Earth Are We Missing? (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003), 239.