The Missing "Peace"

If you want to frustrate someone working on a puzzle, just remove one piece.  There will forever be that one space not filled, one missing piece.  Regardless of how many other pieces fell into place, that one missing piece will frustrate the entire puzzle process.  With that one bit of cardboard missing, they will have no "peace" about the entirety of the puzzle experience.

Have you ever bought a put-together furniture item and got all the way to the end to discover that one single piece was not included?  You may have been feeling pretty good about the whole thing until that one missing piece was discovered and then, no peace was to be had with your purchase or your efforts.  Instead, frustration and angst are all your money, time and energy have bought you.

You find this to be true in your work, your education, your parenting, your marriage; and, quite frankly, in all of life itself.  When there is a missing piece, you will be missing peace.  This is the source of the discord in our country today - there is a missing piece in the lives of our citizenry that frustrates and leave them without inner peace.

Frustration that gives rise to anger, which produces violence is rampant in our inner-city youth, where the majority grow up with the missing piece of a father in the home.  That missing piece, regardless of how we taut diverse family structures, results in a frustration that keeps our prisons filled to capacity and beyond.  We actually need the foundation of a mother and a father in our lives.

We can grow up without a father in the home, or a mother for that matter.  We can also grow up without both of our legs, but it is not the same as having two.  The frustration level and the level of difficulty will be much greater.  You will either have to limp through life or squire a replacement leg of somekind.  Young people will have to limp through life or find a replacement father of some kind, like an uncle or grandad or other male role figure.

But, even with an intact family - even with every earthly need being met, there will still be a missing piece that will leave us missing peace: God's presence.  There is an empty place in our soul that can only be filled with His Spirit.  And, if we are ever to have peace, we must let Him fill that void.

Here is the way to finding the missing peace in our lives: "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (Phil 4:6-7).  Jus' Say'n.