Who Moved My Peace?!

Who 

Moved 

My 

Peace?!

 

I have these pillows in front ot the never-used fireplace, and I love how they look.  Not only that, but I love the word PEACE and I have it all over the house. I've noticed, however, that the peace pillow gets moved.  Not far, just enough to be way off-center, or worse, it gets flipped around where all you can see is the white side and the word PEACE doesn't show up.  It usually gets moved after we've had people over... for home group, or dinner, or something like that.  Somebody sitting on the fireplace needs more room or it gets shoved to the side so the fireplace has room for a plate of food.  Occasionally my sweet husband puts something on the fireplace and he moves it, having no idea that it bothers me.

I noticed it this morning, tilted a little downward and moved all the way to the right by that box (a box which had a purpose when I bought it but has never served it well) and I thought, "Who moved my peace?"

Self-conviction time...
Notice my phrasing: "my peace"

It took a few hours but God gently reminded me that peace is not mine.  It's not mine to give or receieve, and certainly not to hold hostage in this house.  Romans 12:18 says to "live at peace with everyone."  So I know that I can certainly be pro-active at being peaceful, or avoiding strife.  But can I actually create peace?  God pats me sweetly on the shoulder and replies, "No."

A few weeks ago, Tim and I worked in the big kids' room at church.  I knew the lesson would be on the fruit of the spirit, and I found a really fun song to teach the fruit of the spirit to the kids.  Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd it's been stuck in my head ever since. :)  But that's okay.  Because at some point daily, I've been ever-so-subtly reminded that PEACE is a FRUIT of the SPIRIT!  And if I learned anything from the study on fruit of the spirit by Beth Moore, it's this: those nine facets are, together, the fruit. Singular. (Not the fruitS)  And God showed me that He works them in and through me in His time, as He desires in my life.  It seems like during the hardest season of my life, when I was just certain that I should be more Patient, God was actually working something else in me: Faithfulness.  Ironically, we are usually wrong about which fruity flavor we need more of, and in stark contrast to anything else in this modern life, we can't just decide to have more of it.  He has to work it IN us and THROUGH us.

Phil 4:7 says "the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus."  Stumbling back to grade school grammar, we can notice that peace - a noun and subject of the sentence, guards - a verb/action.  So we clearly see that we don't take peace like a magic wand and wave it in the direction we choose.  God has already set HIS peace on a path to protect us, (maybe at times from ourselves).

The title of this blog is "HE IS OUR PEACE" which is straight from Ephesians 2:14.  There are sources of false peace, temporary peace, that this world may provide, but true peace is Jesus Christ Himself.

So who moved my peace?  Well, most likely God did.  If not only to show me that it wasn't ever mine in the first place and I need to turn it back over to Him.