Tag Archives: peace

when the path to peace isn’t peaceful

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“Sometimes the path to peace isn’t peaceful.”

Ugggh.  I hate realities like that.

path trees coming into the lightAt first blush, it almost seems counterintuitive, right?  It seems like to get to peace you make peaceful decisions and have peaceful interactions and so you’re on the path to peace.

But thinking about it, I guess – reluctantly! – my husband’s words makes sense.

After all, the path to peace with God wasn’t peaceful.  Christ was beaten, scourged, ridiculed, denied, and ultimately hung on a cross.  That certainly wasn’t a peaceful path.  But it was the path that leads to ultimate peace.

My journey to knowing Christ wasn’t peaceful.  There were periods of doubt, frustration, wondering, debating, feeling lonely wondering if God exists, feeling angry with a God I wasn’t even sure existed.  None of that was peaceful, but it led to ultimate peace.

And I guess it’s not a concept that is totally foreign in life.  I mean, if you’re on a career path that makes you miserable, you may take a few steps backwards to jump on a different career path that can ultimately take you where you want to go.  It’s kind of the same concept – feeling like you could be regressing, but in actuality you’re make progress towards your ultimate desire.

And so it is with relationships.

Sometimes the path to a peaceful relationship isn’t peaceful.  Sometimes it feels like we’re taking steps backwards.  But in reality, we may just be getting a clearer picture of what needs to change to end up in ultimate peace.

“To hammer out a godly identity takes a lot of courage and a lot of work. And a lot of battles.”

(That’s from one of my all-time favorite books, Boundaries.  I seriously love that thing.  It molds and sharpens my perspective every time I read it.)

Now if it takes courage, a lot of work, and battles to hammer out a godly identity, imagine how much more to hammer out two godly identities!  And not just two godly identities, but two godly identities dancing together in godly friendship.  That’s a dream relationship.

Now for as many wrestling matches as I’ve had in my relationship with an all-perfect God, I certainly can’t expect any fewer wrestling matches working through a relationship with two sinful-but-hopefully-desiring-to-be-godly friends.

So sometimes the battles aren’t a bad thing.  They don’t necessarily mean that we’re regressing – like as a permanent direction. They may simply be revealing more clearly the challenges that need to be worked through if we are going to be able to progress.

After all,

“evil is an active force, and passivity can become an ally of evil by not pushing against it.”

Hmmm… I love that quote.  And at the same time, I hate it.  Wouldn’t it be nicer if the path to peace were simply peaceful?  Yet sometimes by choosing a ‘peaceful’ response, we may – {gulp!} – be - {gulp. yikes!} – an ally of evil.  Sometimes we have to push against the active force of sin so that our ‘peaceful’ or ‘agreeable’ response doesn’t actually enable sin.  And that push… that resistance to evil… that unwillingness to be an ally of evil… may result in a battle.

Or maybe ‘evil’ feels a bit strong.  In contentious situations, should we give the ‘peaceful,’ ‘agreeable’ response?  Should we do whatever it takes to keep the situation at peace?

A hot-tempered person must pay the penalty;
rescue them, and you will have to do it again. ~ Proverbs 19:19

Proverbs suggests no.  Sometimes it seems obvious what to do to placate the situation.  And tempting to do it.  But doing it may simply obviate a reality that needs to be faced.  It may rescue a hot-tempered person… and set us up to rescue them again and again.  It may enable unhealthiness.  It may simply keep what is under the surface under the surface… instead of bringing it to light to truly enable the person – and the relationship – to grow.

So while I long for peace in relationships, the path to get there isn’t always peaceful.  Battles can be a part of the journey towards peace.  And the weird thing is that there is immense freedom in embracing that.  And the opportunity to move forward in strength:

“This journey is always riddled with trouble, but also with the promises of our Shepherd to carry us through.”

As you journey down your path, and as you wrestle through your conflicts, and as you battle towards godly relationships, and as you aim towards relationships of true peace, I pray you’d feel the strength of the Shepherd carrying you through.

Hmmm… in His arms, maybe there can be peace along the way after all…

photo credit: my amazing husband!

Confusing Confusions

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Now don’t get me wrong.  I don’t think God wants us to say “Oh bother!” to everything that we don’t understand.  Sometimes He walks us through some very confusing situations to wrestle out the truth and for Him to ultimately have victory.

“Oh bother!” isn’t for every situation.  But it is for some.  It can be the route to victory.

Several weeks passed after God’s gracious “Oh bother!” gift, and then, like a ‘good’ Israelite, I failed to remember His leading out of ‘Egypt.’  I found myself trying to understand the situation I wasn’t supposed to understand, churning it over and over in my mind, seeking to discover how it got to where it was and what was really underlying it all.

It was not a fun several days of churning.  In fact, it was quite gloomy.

And heavy.

And miserable.

Then my husband threw me a lifeline.  He reiterated that nothing about it made any sense – not the timing, not the approach, not the content, nor the people.  He reminded me that those aren’t the hallmarks of the Lord: “God is not a God of disorder and confusion but of peace” (1 Corinthians 14:33).

So all this confusing confusion – well, that’s not God.  And if it’s not God, who and what does that leave?

Uh-oh.

And here I was dwelling on it.

Confusing confusions can grab our focus and attention as we try to un-tease them.  The words repeat in our minds as we seek to understand.  We ruminate about the confusion and ponder it and rehearse it and analyze it from all different angles.  Unfortunately in the process, we can become impacted by the very untruths we’re trying to tease apart.  As we engage in the confusing confusion that is not of the Lord, we fill our minds with things that should instead be sent to the place with the {double hockey sticks}.

How tricky is Satan?

In his craftiness, he can use confusion to get us to repeat in our heads exactly what he wants us to believe.

Then in walks the miserable gloominess.

Instead (I like ‘instead’!), I can choose to accept that I don’t have to understand.  There’s not a lot I need to understand about this confusing confusion other than what I already know:  It’s confusion.  It’s Satan.  And it’s sin.  They’re tricky, messy, hurtful, and untrue.  They bring miserable gloominess.  And they’re not worth dwelling on!

So I’m praying the Lord will help me train my mind to take captive these thoughts about this confusing confusion.  Whenever they try to sneak in, I get to play Pooh Bear.  I get to give them the ol’ “Oh bother!”

Then hum : )

Oh bother!

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Sometimes, I just love Winnie-the-Pooh.  I mean, how cute is he?

His chillness is striking to me.  It just tickles me.

Like in “Pooh Goes Visiting,” he visits Rabbit’s house and eats too much condensed milk and honey (surprise!).  He’s so full that as he tries to leave Rabbit’s through the front door (read: rabbit hole), he gets stuck.  So his ‘north end’ is outside the hole, and his ‘south end’ is stuck in Rabbit’s house – for a week!

Now where some of us might stress or fret or go into hyper-problem-solving mode, Pooh simply gives it an “Oh bother!”  He wrestles for a minute, then he rests and thinks and hums to himself.

He’s stuck in a hole *humming* to himself!  His chillness just tickles me.

(Speaking of things that tickle me, I love that as he’s chillin’ for a week waiting to get thin so he can become unstuck, Rabbit uses his legs as a coat rack.  Cute : ) )

There’s just something about the simplicity that his “Oh bother!” brings.  Something that causes a light-hearted smile to take over problems.

I had my own “Pooh Goes Visiting” experience not too long ago.  My mind went for a visit to a then-recent hurtful situation.  I wanted to make sense of it, but nothing about it – not the timing, not the approach, not the content, not the people involved – not one thing about it made any sense to me.

I wanted to understand.  I wanted to figure out what was really at the root of it all.  I wanted to be able to uncover the sense behind it.  If you’re familiar with Strengthsfinder, one of mine is Restorative.  I like to solve problems and restore harmony…and this one just wasn’t making any sense.

I was praying about it and wrestling with the Lord about it.  In the midst of it all, I said in frustration, “I just don’t understand!”

And I felt like the Lord said, “You don’t have to understand.”

And just like that!  It was like a gloomy cloud lifted. The weight of the situation dissipated.  It honestly felt like a taste of the moment I accepted Christ – I could feel the pure peace and joy of the Lord.

I don’t have to understand.

It was kind of like my very own “Oh bother!” moment – replete with its simplicity and the light-hearted smile that it brings.

I don’t have to understand.  God can deal with all of that.  And I can rest and hum to myself. : )