Peace

 

 

 

"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee."  (Isa 26.3)

 

“Mind stayed on thee”:  What exactly does this mean?  Especially in these days of constant turmoil? And what is this elusive“perfect” peace?

 

Oh for those simple days of my childhood, some 70 years ago!  Even with WWII raging in both Europe and Asia, there

always seemed to be a comfort in people around me; they talked about shelling peas, shucking corn, raising chickens and watering gardens.  My little girlfriends and I would sit for hours “play-liking” and letting our imaginations become realities, making mudpies and capturing horned toads, feeding chickens, digging bait worms and even noticing that wonderful smell of laundry drying outside on the clothesline and watched thunderclouds climb into the stratosphere.  What a God, that would allow me a childhood like that!

 

Unfortunately, it all seemed to evaporate when I discovered the “real world”.  The “real world” was also that neighbor crying at the government telegram held in her hand with the words, “we regret to tell you...” and that little friend of mine who drowned in the flood which also took our barn away one night decades ago.

 

 

Children learn about the “real world” when they reach a certain age. Suddenly,  they face a cruel world full of people without time to make mudpies and chase horned toads, whose bodies ache from hoeing the garden or walking two miles to work long enough to feed the hungry mouths at the kitchen table.   We learn about sickness and dying, hatred and betrayal. So whenever it was that the curtain got drawn on my childhood, I was not aware that there was someone around who knew and understood how difficult the transition was for all of us. For I was to read about it in the Bible years later, and there learned that God has numbered every hair on my head and also knew all my anxious thoughts and concerns. That’s why, even now, when I have concerned myself with the things of this world, He still calls out, “Mary, Mary,, wherefore art thou, Mary?, inviting me to lie down with Him in the cool of the evening and enjoy the things He seeks to share with me. The perfect peace God wants to give me comes from having my mind “stayed on Him”.  When I do that, fears and anxieties melt away quickly, and I too can lie down in green pastures with that peace which passes all understanding. 

 

 

Once, during a missionary trip to India, my travel companion Melanie and I were in a large city at the very tip of India called Rameshswaram. They were having a Hindu festival at that time, and there was loud music, drum beats, and wild shouting among the thousands celebrating.  We had come there to hold a little meeting with a few local Christians outside on the sandy beach, but we could not even hear ourselves speak with such a distraction.  So we left and went into a small village that had a small hostel and got a room.  It was very sparse, no television, nothing but the beds.

 

Just then the electricity went off. We could not even read a book.  But the view from the window was facing the ocean and it had a small veranda where we could sit and relax. And so we moved outside.

 

We were completely in the dark, except for a reflection of moonlight on the water outside. As I watched the moonlight on those small waves, I was marveling that we could be sitting in such a place—for the next piece of land would be in far away Antartica.

 

We had a small cassette player with some beautiful praise music, so we turned it on and were enjoying it when suddenly a large group of dogs appeared.  They all sat down below us and seemed to be enjoying the peaceful setting, resting.  It was such an unusual thing, that I said "let's turn off the music and see what happens".  When we did, all the dogs got up and left! Then we turned it on again, and here they came--lying down below us as before.  It startled us.  So we experimented. After doing this several times, we saw that if the music was not playing, they left.  If it was playing, they came and lay down. I knew that those dogs in those villages had never known what peaceful, spiritual music sounded like; but here they were--enjoying it just as we were!!  They could recognize a difference! 

 

Do I long for those kind of unexplainable adventures?  Oh yes, and I do have them if take the time to “be still”, to know His presence and hear what my heavenly Father wants to say. 

 

Here, outside my bedroom window I have many bird feeders to attract so many of them.  As I watched, two downy woodpeckers arrived and attached themselves to a cage.  But only one of them, the male,  began to feed. And whenever he dug some seeds out of the cake, he would look over at the other bird, who was doing nothing but waiting with an open beak, which he filled time and again.  How awesome to see such a sight!  One bird feeding another!  What were they doing I wondered? Was he filling her beak, so she could then fly off to deposit them all into the beaks of their hungry chicks? Must have been.  And I saw an example of compassionate love even among the feathered birds right here at my window.

 

 

Recently, I was reading something along this line of thought concerning the oft-unanswered question about our inability to hear God speak; Can’t we see the problem?  Isn’t it because we too are caught up in life’s festivals and celebrations, involving ourselves with its many distractions and worries that cause us to keep our ears and thoughts away from the true and living God?

 

Once, when I was in a very large airport, I had a couple of hours between flights.  I usually looked to the Holy Spirit to lead me to someone I could witness to about our Lord. But I walked up and down the corridors and could not find anyone who seemed a likely subject.  Nearly everyone was either holding a cell phone, an ipod,  a laptop, or was absorbed in some picture on the television.  Finally, I gave up and went into a MacDonalds to get something to eat. Looking around, it was very crowded. Will I find a seat?

 

I had not even finished with my purchase when a lady walked up to me.  “If you would like join with me and my husband, you’re welcome to come to our table with me”.  When I did, I found them to be God’s children and  had lovely, wonderful fellowship together with strangers,  eaten in a crowded MacDonald’s, in a crowded airport terminal.I thought about those Rameshswaram canines back in India.

 

AS ONE MAN WROTE:

 

”I am convinced that as young children, we are the smartest, the purest. We have a view of the world that is untainted by the goals and desires of others. We carry the truth in the tiny palms of our tiny hands, confident that growing up will not be able to tear them from our grasps. And it does not. But as we get older, we choose to loosen our grips on them, no longer giving the same value to higher understanding as we did when we were children. Eventually, we drop the contents of our hands all together. Maturity does not tear the truth from our palms; we abandon it ourselves.

And so, with empty hands, we get jobs and families and money and mortgages. We get what we thought we wanted -- for some people exactly what we thought we wanted -- and then are left with a most peculiar feeling. Somewhere along the way, we must have messed up. Here we are, with everything we could have hoped for, unfulfilled.

Many of us return to the palms of our childhood, trying to pick up the pieces of truth that we once knew. But we can't, and so we don't. We continue our lives with the feeling that something is missing. We live with a void. Something, out of all the possible everythings, was lost from the recipe of our lives. We thought we had all the ingredients, but it doesn't taste like we had hoped.

So we start experimenting. We add exotic ingredients to the recipe, unrestrained by our desperate hunger. Some people read books extensively, searching for a word or page that will fill their personal abyss. Some go to drugs, hoping that the temporary pleasure will fill the gap in their lives. Some never acknowledge the void at all, claiming that the rationality of science or the power of another's love is enough to complete their lives. But I believe they are lying to themselves. We all live with this void.

It is the feeling that something is still missing, and we don't know how we could have ever let it slip away. But here we are-with map in hand, exactly where we wanted to be -- lost. There is an aching emptiness in some category of our souls that we can't seem to fill. We try not to think about it, but when we do, it scares us senseless. So we fill the void with something, anything.

And that, I would argue, is why so many people believe in God.”

 

 

Only Jesus Can Satisfy Your Soul

The world may try to satisfy That longing in your soul.
You may search the wide world o’re,  But you'll be just as before.
You'll never find true satisfaction Until you've found the Lord,
For only Jesus can satisfy your soul.

If you could have the fame and fortune, All the wealth you could attain.
Yet, you have not Christ within,Your living here would be in vain.
There'll come a time when death will find you, Riches cannot help you then.
So, come to Jesus, only He can satisfy.

 

Only Jesus can satisfy your soul. Yes, only He can change your heart
And make you whole. He'll give you peace you never knew,
Sweet joy and love and Heaven, too. For only Jesus can satisfy your soul.

--Lanny Wolfe

MARY E ADAMS

website: www.maryeadams.com