Many pages in my journals over the last few years show times of the battles and cries of my heart for a time of peace within myself, areas in my life and in the lives of people I love. Page after page, day after day, year after year, coming before the Lord in desperation, seeking His heart and guidance as I walked through the battles of my own life and coming alongside others in theirs. Held in ink are conversations, revelations and prayers. They speak of a time during which I asked for, fought for, whined and pouted about and tried to keep my eyes on Jesus for leading me through to a place of rest and answers.
As the years have come and gone something in my cries has shifted. The pleas for a time of peace have become less panicked and frantic. Though many of the battles still rage on, my posture holds something that was forged over time in many fires and with God’s merciful help.
It’s not that the battles have all ceased, but I am looking back on a time where I have known warfare and time of peace in my walk.
Peace is different from battle. Duh. When choosing one over the other, most of us would choose peace, understanding it as an absence of conflict.
Reflecting on the changes and shifts between battles and peace in my life, I have come to notice that my desperation for God’s presence has moved with the times of peace and war. My vehement searching of His will in the quiet morning hours lost a bit of the urgent need for guidance before every step taken when there was not a battle at hand.
As I was contemplating this, the Lord drew my attention to David and Solomon. Two Kings, one kingdom. One fought for his kingdom and was skilled in the art of warfare and battle. The other reigned the kingdom with his throne firmly established and his territory subject to him for the entirety of his rule.
Driven to God’s heart by different motivators, with different intensity, their circumstances and journeys stand in stark contrast to each other!
Had they lived in this time, I imagine both David and Solomon would have been avid bloggers. We are only privy to many of their most private thoughts and feelings because of their desire to let parts of their heart and soul pour out through pen.
Psalm 27 is one of my absolutely favorite scriptures and throughout the last few years the Lord has drawn my attention to it time and time again. Perhaps the most marked and noted chapter in my Bible, it continues to reveal wonderful new depths of truth to me. Packed with such passion.
In the description of this Psalm the commentators of my Bible chose the words ‘unwavering confidence in God’. Man. Let that settle in.
Unwavering confidence in God.
David was not a perfect man. He was a man who was very familiar with desperate situations. He knew the gut wrenching feeling of standing up against an opponent several times his height better than anyone. He was familiar with grief, loss, hardship and betrayal. I assume his life had been sought after more than we know. He lived with the knowledge that some people would much rather know him dead than alive…… that would be a bit discouraging… I suppose.
And yet. Unwavering confidence that his God would provide for him, keep him, love him and listen to him.
There is only one place that confidence came from. Experience. David had laid his heart into the palms of God so many times and God had proven to be his continuous shelter, that it became the king’s default. Desperate times? Run to God. A response engraved into his heart by the repetition of choosing to trust God battle after battle after hardship after loss after battle after battle.
Psalm 27 ends so beautifully with “wait for the Lord. Be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord”, as though David was reminding himself once more how to approach a time of desperation.
Solomon’s words have a much different ring to them just one hundred Psalms later. Describing the first half of Psalm 127, one might go so far as using the words ‘the American dream’. Building a house, keeping your belongings protected and making sure enough food gets to the table….
In Ecclesiastes he is listing one meaningless thing after another. Solomon’s thoughts and pondering can be a bit hard to read considering that he was so blessed with a peaceful life, loyal subjects, wisdom and wealth beyond our grasp. One might consider his life something to strive for. And yet, I am not sure he’d agree.
Achieving lofty goals, he built cities and improved the security for many. He built a palace and above all accomplished the building of the temple, the very dwelling place of God Most High.
His name means “man of peace”….. and somehow his writings give a glimpse into a heart that doesn’t sound very peace filled.
When I read some of his thoughts on life, I look for, I miss the passion that so filled his father. The colorful description of the joy that fills his heart at the very thought of God. The raw, vulnerable truth when his heart is filled with sadness or disappointment pouring out with the unwavering confidence that one is safe. Is it not possible to be so peace filled in a time of peace?
Unwavering confidence in God vs. considering the senselessness of life without Him.
Living a life OF peace does not equal living a life IN peace.
No, there was a major difference between the two men and there is a major difference between a time of peace and a time of desperation in our spiritual walk.
NEED
We are driven by it.
But. In a time of peace…. we are less driven by the desperate need for a time in peace.
One is meaningless without the other. To live only in a time of peace is meaningless without knowing a time of desperate need for peace.
To live in only a time of desperate need is pointless without the hope of peace.
We beg, cry and plead for seasons of peace because the absence of conflict sure sounds wonderful. But right there, in the days, months and years of fighting our battles, our desperate need for the Lord’s guidance drives us into His arms and keeps us looking to Him. Perhaps, if we are willing to consider it in seasons of pleading with Him for peace, we will see: there He is.
The person of peace, ready to embrace those who seek Him.
Because it is He who is able to keep IN perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast because they trust in Him. (Isaiah 26:3).
Be blessed with peace!
Leave a Reply