Know Peace or No Peace

The bumper sticker on the car ahead, honking anxiously and angerly at the next car up for not moving fast enough after the light turned green read, "TOO BLESSED TOO BE STRESSED."  Somehow, I am not convinced.

Perhaps you've heard the story of the woman who rated and raved, honking her horn and screaming explitives at the car ahead, who was pulled over by the police.  Embarrassed, she said to the officer, "I'm sorry I got carried away but I didn't think yelling at the car ahead was against the law.  The officer replied, "I didn't pull you over for what you said in particular.  It's just that reading your Christian bumper stickers and listening to frantic and angry way you dealt with the car ahead, I assumed you must have stolen this car."

I remember the very first time I ever heard the phrase, "I'm stressed out!"  It was in the late 90s and it was uttered by the lips of a deacon's wife who was a Bible class teacher.  It's not just the immature or fringe member of the church who get stressed, even some of the core members do not know peace.  As a former preacher, I can tell you that some of the most tightly wound people I've known were other ministers.

How can this be?  How can people of faith have no peace, when the word of Jesus run so counter to that reality?  "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace.  In this wold you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world" (Jn 16:33).  Knowing we have the victory, knowing that God's got this - how can we have no peace?  How come we don't know peace?

Is it because people today are so much more difficult to deal with than they were when Christ walked the earth?  I hardly think so.  You have read about that whole crucifixion thing, right?  Is it because circumstances of life are more difficult?  Not likely.  The entire planet was third-world and ruled by the  iron fist of Rome.

We don't know peace because we refuse to accept it.  "Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts" (Col 3:15).  Did you notice that imperative, "let" rather than earn or achieve or find?  The peace is available and we don't own it because we won't "let" it be so.  Really?  Really!

The power for peace comes from the God of Peace, which we by-pass trying to handle things on our own and relying on our own power to deal with it, whatever it may be.  But the it so often turns out to be bigger, messier, more costly and more draining than we imagined.  Somewhere along the line, we don't know how were going to get through it.  But God knows and if we place our trust in Him, then the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (Phil 4:7).  Jus' Say'n.