Advent Week 2: Peace In Unexpected Places

It's hard to let go of our hopes

We’re in the second week of Advent - “Peace.” This week’s theme is challenging for pretty much everybody, I think. Peace is a nice refrain, a seasonal platitude that sometimes I feel pressured to conform to but may not actually feel on a soul-level.

At the moment, I don’t have significant things in my life robbing me of peace. There have been points of my life where I’ve felt that way- I wrote about one of them earlier this fall. Though my life this season is generally devoid of conflict, peace is much deeper than the absence of conflict. It’s deeper than a simple quiet winter moonlit night. It’s still possible to engage in practices in my life that rob me of peace and keep me on the treadmill of performance, achievement, comparison, or self-entertained busyness.

Peace suggests a deeper state of contentment and harmony. I usually open each class period of the day with prayer, and I’ll often pray that my students will experience "the peace of Christ,” that would serve as an anchor amidst the rolling waves of life’s circumstances. I’m really praying for this myself- I’m too often cast about like a small vessel bobbing on the waves of mood and circumstance.

It’s easy to think that If I just had________, I’d be more at peace." For me, I often fill in the blank with things like “time to rest,” “an end to this interpersonal conflict,” “more money,” “more time,” “opportunities to be with friends,” etc. None of those are bad things. In fact, pretty much all are unalloyed goods. Each is worth praying for. But this past Sunday, my pastor mentioned that "if you’ve found yourself praying faithfully for something for a long time, and have not received it, perhaps you should stop praying for that thing.”

This sentence turned my head. What? Stop praying for something good? His caveat was this: If you’ve been praying for that thing because you think it will bring you peace, you may be putting your hope in the wrong thing. What would it be like to pray for the peace of Christ instead? The one thing that can sustain us through the worst suffering possible?

This is a challenge for me. I take Matthew 11:24 fairly seriously on the face of the text:

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

But it’s not a verse about “manifesting.” It’s about faith in God’s faithfulness to us.

This week, I’m going to try to do more of asking for God’s peace, rather than things that I think will bring me peace.

I’ll try to do things that help me get in this mode - on Sunday, Courtney and I took Strider to the woods (see picture up top). It was so nice to walk in the fresh air and watch Strider enjoy the outdoors, and reminded me that there is much to be thankful for.

The mundane things in life can point us to that which brings us peace.

See you all next week.