Peace Out part 1
Sometimes when I hang up the phone instead of saying bye I'll say, "Ok... peace out!" I think it's from a movie I've seen at some point in my life, because I do it in kind of a weird voice too. But the point is--and I think this is timely--we can have peace no matter what. Because the fire inside us is always hotter than the fire we're in. Look at John 16:33, "These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." Did you catch that first part? In HIM we have peace. He IS our peace. And I think we know, this kind of goes without saying, in this world we WILL have tribulation. Life happens. Things don't always go our way. So we can either live in fear and let outside circumstances wreck us... or we can rest in the arms of our loving heavenly Father. The verse I want to use for this Rant series is 1 John 4:18, "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love." See, we always seem to compare and contrast love with hate. I think more than anything hate is hurt. You can't hate someone you don't care about. Because if you don't care about someone... you don't care enough to hate them. I think the reason John put fear and love together is because love is our safe place. When you're afraid, you tend to want to run. Fight or flight, right? But the important part is knowing where to run to. Knowing that we have a safe place. That we can, in a sense, peace out. The key is knowing that we don't have to run FROM God--because He's not out to punish us--but that we can run TO God. He is there to help us. To pick us up when we fall down. To carry us through. In this world we WILL have tribulation. That's just called life. And life happens every day. What's that old saying? We don't need to know what tomorrow holds when we know who holds tomorrow. Because the One who holds tomorrow is also the One who is holding us. Our peace comes from knowing that God is in control. Our peace is in Him. He IS our peace. Why? Because He has already overcome the world. Everything that needed to happen... happened. Two thousand years ago on the cross. Like we're always waiting for God to move. When, in reality, God already moved. The cross was when Jesus overcame. Listen: An overcomer is not someone who CAN overcome. It is someone who HAS overcome. We don't need to overcome (in our own strength or through our own efforts) because Jesus already did overcome. The work is finished. And now we can rest in the arms of our loving heavenly Father. We don't have to stress out, or worry, or be afraid. We can just love. We can let God love us--and most of the time, I'm telling you, He does that through people--and we can love Him back by loving people. See how that works? It's simply receiving and releasing the love of God so that we can experience the love of God. We can have a sense of peace no matter what's going on. We can sleep in the boat in the midst of the storm. We can have peace no matter what's happening. We can, in a very real sense, peace out!