Seeking Peace

August 2, 2016

We all acknowledge I imagine that we are not perfect.  We know that we will make mistakes.  We even are taught in church that we are all sinners.  But that does not make acknowledging those errors and sins easy.  It does not make waiting to see what the cost will be any less painful.  Will we get away with it or might we lose everything?  It can be agony!

As we watch presidential politics, we can see this play out on a large and public scale.  While we/I wish that they’d just come clean and move on, we know from our own lives just how hard that can be. 

I remember times when I have screwed up my courage and admitted a wrong only to have anger spring up around me and others pile on to my confession their pain – perhaps pain I had caused.  I wanted a free confession, not one where I had to pay the price for pain and disappointment.

When I remember these times, it becomes much clearer to me why others, and even I myself, do not confess.  What if confessing makes it worse?  Therefore, the dread stays inside, unrealized.  How do we ever find peace?

In the Daily Office today, we read the encounter between John the Baptist and his questioners sent by the Pharisees. (John 1: 19-28) During that exchange, John says that the one that had been foretold was among them, unseen, and unknown.  The Lord is among us even when we do not perceive his presence.  The hope we need is here even as we are in the midst of our questions.  The forgiveness we need is at hand even when we are too afraid to ask for it.

And so I end with one of my favorite prayers, A Collect for Peace.  I read it every Tuesday.

O God, the author of peace and lover of concord, to know you is eternal life and to serve you is perfect freedom: Defend us, your humble servants, in all assaults of our enemies; that we, surely trusting in your defense, may not fear the power of any adversaries; through the might of Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Testing the Signs

How often do we/I say, “It must be a sign,” to the smallest coincident?  For some it has become such a practice that they have even changed the word to God-incident.  Everything is according to God’s leading we believe.  Be if we read our holy scriptures carefully, we can often see that those called by God had a very different response to being led.

In the Daily Office reading for today we see this in the story of Gideon.  In Judges 6: 25-40 we read how Gideon responded.  First, to be sure that he was the one called to deliver Israel, he asked for a sign.  He asked that some wool left out would be wet with dew, while the surrounding ground would be dry.  Of course, God answered by not only making the wool damp, but filling it with enough water to fill a bowl when it was wrung out!  The sign was not dubious! 

However, Gideon was not sure.  “What if that was just an accident?” we can almost hear him ask.  For then he asks, with the same experiment, that the wool be dry and the ground wet with dew.  It is kind of the opposite of the scientific method.  Rather than looking to reproduce the experiment, he is making sure that the activity is God’s and not just nature.  Of course, the next day the wool is dry and the ground wet.  God has answered.

This story challenges me, and I think many of use to wonder, do we spend enough time in prayer and discernment before we/I make a decision?  In my church, for instance, we often address pretty serious concerns in the hallway between services.  I wonder what this method costs us.  Do we go into each decision with an understanding of the scope and the nature of the project?  Do we go into it with enough determination to continue when we hit the inevitable obstacles?

Jesus tells us that we need to count the cost of what we determine to do and to make our decisions being as wise as serpents and as innocent of doves.  (It is important not to reverse those two things!)

May God give us discerning spirits in this age of disbelief and instant decisions.  May we follow his lead and test our conclusions.  May we be blessed as we walk in the light of our savior Jesus!