“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives.”
John 14:27a
We often hope peace will come when we get everything in our life set up the way we want it. While this is a worthy goal, if often doesn’t work out. People, places, and things have a way of spinning on their own trajectory. You know—you sit down at your computer ready to get a lot of work done, only to find that it is busy updating itself—oh well. At that moment you have the chance to dip into the peace Jesus was assuring his disciples about—inner peace. All of us have the ability to respond to the delay in our plans with serenity. We can take a breath, look up from the desk and around the room to get a larger view, and so calm down our anxious brain. We can even reassure ourselves with, “God’s got this. All is well.”
Our quiet mind opens us to guidance, power, and just the sheer joy of the moment. The influential Daoist philosopher Zhuangzi understood this profound truth, “To a mind that is still, the entire universe surrenders.” Jesus was always inviting people to live from within out, not from outside in. He well knew that life throws curve balls, some annoying, and some really painful. He never rescued anybody from their circumstances—that was not possible. What he did do was to exude the light within him and touch into the light in others—he woke them up. They realized they weren’t helpless. They started to have some of the peace Jesus was always talking about—and in fact seemed to live from.
That peace that Jesus lived is right here within you and me today. We can call on it at any time. We can remember that we are not alone, for the same Light that is in Jesus is in us. The same peace that he shared with the disciples he shares with us. Be at peace—God’s got this! All is well.
In the Love and Light of the Christ,
Rev. Anna
