REFLECTIONS

Unhurried Peace

Daylight’s unhurried peace hides beneath the horizon until its glow peeks over its hiding place to announce a new day. Nature waits for it to awaken the breeze to flutter the leaves and enliven the birds’ soprano voices to invade the peace and arouse other sounds that define our busy world. Life entices us to join in.

“Life’s a dance you learn as you go.” Words like these from a country song, hit the mark; only we don’t learn life in a studio. We learn life on the world’s dance floor.

It’s hard to learn about the life without seeing it all. Who can imagine the Alps without being there at least once? Or driving through Colorado’s mountain passes without driving through them. Who can imagine the dense foliage along the Amazon, or the endless sand dunes of the Sahara without being there? And who can understand the people of this world without spending time in their living rooms, in their circumstances, practicing their customs and speaking their languages, experiencing their lives without dancing a mile or two in their shoes?

“Life’s a dance you learn as you go.” Every day offers a new lesson; and troublesome to learn among them is to dance in someone else’s shoes. Jesus cautioned us, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” (Matthew 7:1) Or as Stephen Covey wrote in 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, “Seek first to understand and then to be understood.” Learn to dance in another’s shoes.

When self-righteous Pharisees and teachers of the law brought Jesus a woman caught in adultery, he answered them, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” (John 8:7) For you, perhaps adultery isn’t one of them, but before we seek punishment to some other sinful person, may we first consider our own sinfulness. We all dance in sinful shoes.

But it doesn’t mean we should not express ourselves. Even Jesus stirred things up from time to time. To help bring better understanding and peace, He turned the tables on the money changers, he called out the hypocrites, he challenged the teachers of the law.

Unhurried peace. We are all in search of it. So, why are we in such a hurry to disturb it? Perhaps because we want to make it last forever. One day it will, only not as we imagine it to be or by our own hands. But by the peace of God, which transcends all understanding.

May gentleness guide our hearts and minds until the day Jesus comes again. When He will wipe every tear from [our] eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things [will have] passed away.” (Revelation 21:4)

And we will find peace like we have never known.

You are the light of the world,

Richard +

www.reflectingthesavior.org

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