Our class lesson hits the above Beatitude this week. Peace is a wide-ranging subject, and one with which many Christians struggle. By the way, this beatitude is not about peace-keeping; it is about having peace in one's life and helping others to have it too.
Angela Thomas says that before we can become a peacemaker, we must become a peace processor. That is, we spend time thinking about it, reading about it, and praying about it. "To become a woman of peace, you have to drag your dehydrated heart into the presence of God and ask him for his peace." Phil. 4:5-7 says the same thing. In the same verses, The Message defines peace as a "sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good." And when we sense this, that will settle us down and displace worry.
I am not a pessimistic person, but I do struggle with anxiousness. I struggle with wanting to know outcomes before they appear--with impatience. My prayer is, "Lord, I want to know how this comes out, and I want to know it NOW." But Jesus says in John 16:33, "In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."
Now if I could just remember that when the ogre of worry appears.
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