Searching for Peace (Friday Devotional)

 

The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. 

- Isaiah 11:6

Peace—real, lasting shalom—is almost impossible to attain in our world. Maybe you can manage to stop fighting, but bad feelings will probably continue to linger. Maybe you can achieve a pause in your struggles, a break from the almost constant stream of difficulties, but eventually a new trial will rear its head. Maybe you’ll even reach a state of stillness and rest, a retreat from anxiety—but inevitably life will come crashing back in with its interruptions and stresses and busyness.

Peace is simply unnatural in our fallen world. Our systems aren’t set up to benefit everyone, just a select few, because that’s how we’ve designed them. Our relationships are too often marred by strife when a dose of humility would set things right. Given chance after chance to set pride aside in the name of cooperation, we choose selfishness and hostility.

But despite our inability to attain peace, despite our refusal to make the necessary efforts to achieve it, we still long for it. We want something better than endless conflict and struggle and stress. We want a life marked by grace instead of judgment, forgiveness instead of slander. We know there has to be a better way.

God began to show us that way when he sent the Kings of Kings to this world, not as a conquering warrior or a wealthy lord, but as a peasant girl’s baby, laid in a humble manger. God began to show us peace when that baby grew into a man who blessed the poor instead of subjugating them, who healed the sick instead of bullying them, who loved sinners instead of judging them. God showed us peace when that same Jesus chose crucifixion instead of combat, the cross instead of the sword, a sacrificial death instead of a bloody revolution.

Our world is not what it was meant to be. But in Christ, God has ushered in something better, a life that someday the whole world will see. That life is found in the Prince of Peace. O come, let us adore him.