-Walking in the way of gratitude and trust where I am communicating my concerns and needs to the Lord Who I recognize is both good and in control unlocks an amazing and powerful promise: peace. God’s peace. Peace beyond description. Peace that is out of this world (John 14.27). It is safe to say that in many ways, peace is the greatest need and deepest desire of fallen man in a broken world. Peace with your Maker (“R.I.P.”). Peace with your fellow man. It is the Hebrew concept of shalom (in arabic, salaam). Not just absence of conflict but a state of completion, unity, harmony, restoration, of well-being and wholeness, growth and prosperity that is truly other-worldly. All of creation yearns, groans for this peace. Both Arabs and Jews greet and part from each other with wishes for this peace. It is an earthly approximation of paradise, and will ultimately only be fully realized in paradise, because God’s peace is rooted in God Himself, and is the result of His work and His presence. The kind of wholeness and harmony that we all need and are looking for will in fact find its final expression in the finished work of One Who is called the Prince of Shalom. Certainly it is no coincidence that the city where this Prince will finally establish His rule is called yeru-shalem, or foundation of shalom. It is also where God first caused His Name to dwell (2Chronicles 3.1), as well as the precise location where the necessary atoning sacrifice of God’s Son for our sins (the one which made possible lasting peace with God) was both prefigured by Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 22.2) and finally accomplished by Christ. This place of shalom ultimately comes to designate heaven itself (cf Hebrews 12.22-23).
-On this side of paradise, however, God’s peace and presence is presently available to God’s people such that it actually guards their hearts and their minds like a fort. No human fort, this - nothing in the entire universe can break through to take away this peace. There is no power or problem big enough to penetrate the wall of God’s other-worldly peace when it is surrounding and guarding our hearts. and this shalom is more than a pipe dream or a random possibility, it is a certainty based on the promise of God Himself. The only condition which must first be satisfied is found in the previous verse, where we are to be thanking God and bringing our requests and concerns to Him in each and every circumstance, where we are reminding ourselves that He is in control of all things and that He is good. Having done this, while we are not given a guarantee of any particular outcome or resolution, we know for sure that no matter what challenges or hardship we are facing, peace is ours for the taking, peace with God, peace which comes only from Him, peace that surrounds your heart and keeps the worries and cares of the world at bay, the peace which you only fully enjoy when you find yourself in paradise, where you can look around and truly be at rest. Harmony. Well-being. The ability to relax and say, ‘ahhhh.’ Shalom. And the promise is as good today as it was 2000 years ago.
-Isn't this what we're pursuing when we go on vacation, to a deserted beach, or to the mountains, when we are fishing, or out on a boat, or in small doses when we just want to get away, when we escape with a cup or glass of a relaxing beverage and a good book or a friend or a movie? We so want to be able to say, 'ahhhh.' We are grasping at just a glimmer of peace on earth. Shalom. Paradise, that for which we were originally designed. We were made to live forever in paradise, in perfect peace and harmony with each other, with the world, and with our Maker. And we've been trying to get back there ever since it was lost.
-Unfortunately, God’s peace is something which a lost world can never truly experience. It searches in vain to find a counterfeit in various drugs and dalliances, in treaties and in tolerance. The ability to find and experience real shalom in the midst of busy-ness and brokenness not only eludes the world, but makes the world stop and notice when they see it in God’s people. The Lord uses hard times not only to provide an opportunity for His people to trust in Him in a way that makes them more like Jesus, but also to provide an unbelieving world the chance to glimpse the reality of His work in the world and in the lives of those whose hearts are truly His (Romans 8.28).
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