Original Entry: September 8, 2008
McMinnville, OR
Whoever of
you loves life and desires to see many good days, keep your tongue from evil
and your lips from speaking lies. Turn
from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and
his ears are attentive to their cry; Psalm 34:12-15
For,
“whoever would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and
his lips from deceitful speech. He must
turn from evil and do good; he must seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous
and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against
those who do evil.” 1Peter 3:10-12
Peace is
elusive.
In our
busy, rushed, technological world it seems that we scurry past peace rarely
experiencing it for any meaningful duration of time. We actually pride ourselves by our lack of
peace. We love to respond, “Busy” when
asked how we are doing. We run ourselves
ragged only to experience peace through vacation one, maybe two, weeks a
year.
I struggle
to slow down enough to find peace through the busyness of life. Jesus said, “Peace I leave you” but it seems that his peace has left me. Where did it go?
1Peter 3:11 says, “Seek peace and pursue it.”
These five words are curious. What it is like to “seek peace and pursue it.”
Is seeking the same as pursuing?
What is really going on here?
In Western
Oregon we are on day eleven of our archery season. So far I have been out five times looking for
(seeking) elk. Already dropping nearly
ten pounds my hunts are spent walking, calling and looking for any signs that
might lead me to the herd bull. So far I
have seen several bucks but zero elk: Zero, nada, none, nothing. Seeking
then is searching diligently for something we have yet to find.
However,
once elk are located seeking becomes pursuing.
Once a trophy is located the quest begins to get into position for the
shot. This is often referred to as
“dogging the elk”.
Let’s get
back to peace. Peace, then, must be searched.
A man must find times in his busy calendar to block out moments of
peace. He must carve out moments to
experience the peace of Christ in his heart.
Once experienced he will be unleashed (if you will) to actively engage
in pursuing that moment.
Where can
you carve time into your busy day to seek peace?
