Peace. 

 It seemed like an especially elusive quality, perhaps because I had to prepare a talk on peace, and I couldn’t come up with any good word pictures to describe it. 

I’d expected to find peace and quiet in my own backyard during the Covid-19 quarantine, but the unending weeks of homeschool, coupled with the frustration of interrupted plans and unrelenting isolation worked to keep peace at bay.

Several months later, after safely arriving in Ohio, I thought I would find peace during a camping trip to Lake Erie. The lake was beautiful and we had an amazing family weekend, but with thirteen kids and five adults packed into two campsites at a crowded campground, the weekend was anything but peaceful! 

I finally realized I was looking for an experience of peace, not for peace itself. While it’s true we can experience peace in the beauty of God’s creation, true peace is not a feeling. It’s a state of BEING. It comes from being IN Christ. 

As I contemplated this state of being in peace, I recalled a beach retreat for Quechua believers and the enjoyment of watching these “mountain people” react to standing on the edge of the Pacific Ocean for the very first time. The ladies, dressed in several layers of colorful wool skirts and sweaters, stood safely on the dry sand. The teen girls were a bit braver, taking off their shoes and rolling up the wool leggings under their skirts so they could tiptoe into the water. It was the teen boys, however, along with our two kids, who enjoyed the retreat to the fullest extent, because they left the beach behind and ran headlong into the waves. 

That’s the picture I was looking for to describe peace. Just like those Quechua teens, we need to step away from the minutiae of our daily lives and run headlong into Jesus, for he himself is our peace! Only when we are truly living IN him will we experience the peace that passes all understanding.

So quit standing on the edge of the waves… run to the water and jump right in!