Peace Like a River

This blog is designed to give people an inner look at a devotional life. Taking time each day to spend time with the Lord. The hope is if you travel on this journey with Rev. Jacob Shaw, you may be more inclined to spend time with the Lord as well. I encourage the use of a devotional, a scripture reading and prayer, then finally some form of artistic mark to tie it all together. 

Today's devotional is taken from: Zacharias, Ravi. The Logic of God: 52 Christian Essentials for the Heart and Mind. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2019. [E-Book] Chapter 50: Peace Like A River

Opening Thought: Today’s reading looks at the peace one gets in their relationship with Jesus. This is a peace I have come to know more and more over the last few years. There are many reasons why peace comes to people with faith. There is the rest in the assurance of salvation, there is the calm in the truth that you were made by a creator whose wisdom and knowledge transcend all we could ever comprehend. There is a feeling of interconnection with the world, creation, and all people, but without being bound to it, so the darkness it contains cannot pollute the goodness it holds. I find the very premise of peace and faith as almost synonymous. To have faith is peace.

Often, we will use allegory or metaphor to help depict what the peace of faith feels likes or looks like, there is a hymn often sang in my denomination which say, “I got peace like a river in my soul.” You can almost feel that. The image of peace flowing out like a river. Rivers are sources of life, you cannot picture a healthy river without the image of plants and tree lining the edge of the river, hosting a plethora of the living creation; what God gifts the world with. When you have peace like a river, you become like the river. You expand the life force within you, into the world, allowing other people to find peace too.

Therefore, we must guard our hearts, because if our rivers become polluted, the life around us will be toxic, poisons and die. The peace within can only truly be feed by the ocean that is God, a never ending ocean of peace, tranquility and love.

The devotional begins with: Isaiah 26:3-4

You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast because they trust in you. Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD, the LORD himself, is the Rock eternal.

Second Thought: I have had few times where I have met people who try to come across as peaceful when they are not. It was as if they believed that faking being at peace would make it happen. There are a few human characteristics that do work this way. Confidence for example can, when I was young, I took an interest in goal setting, and business management and in many guides to successful leadership people would say, “if one ‘fakes’ confidence, over time they will naturally become confident,” or more concisely put, “fake it till you make it.” It is a bit more nuanced than that, but the premise is simple enough. I know that this works for confidence because I did it myself. I used to be horrible shy and anxious. One day I clued in that if I could keep a calm expression on my face, people would have no idea I was anxious or lacking in confidence. The more I came to terms with that, the more natural confidence I developed. That didn’t mean I never had anxious or nervous, but I knew I could fall back onto the confidence I had built by this tactic of faking, and eventually it became very rare that I ever didn’t feel confident.

Peace I do not feel works this way, (but if you feel differently – leave a comment and let me know), I have always found that peace needs to be nature, it needs to be discovered and appreciated. Peace seems to only occur once you have faith. Now going back to confidence, you may gain peace with public speaking as your gain more confidence, but the peace is acquired when you have faith in yourself to speak publicly without it being embarrassing or overwhelming. The peace comes from faith in the confidence you have built. If we want the ultimate peace in life, one must find faith in the ultimate source of life, God.

Continual Work: Imagine your peace as a river, if you did have peace like a rive flowing out of you in life, what would grow as a result? How can being in better peace with God help your river of peace flow?

What Rev. Jacob is Working On: I find on thing that helps me find peace is building and making things. I often imagine heaven as a big workshop filled with every tool to invent and play with.

Prayer for your day: God let there be peace in my heart, a calm in my spirit, and a steadfast work ethic by my labored hands. In this I will come to find contentment. Amen.   

Artistic Close: See the power of water, the water is an echo of God’s peace.

Waterfall in the forest. Original public domain image from Wikimedia Commons