Could Your Life be Missing This?
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Through the Eyes of a Child
Through the Eyes of a Child
Time has a way redirecting our thoughts and ideas from time to time. I watched this week as a niece of mind finished the first episode in her life and embarks on a new episode that will hopefully be more fulfilling and inspiring than the last. I don’t know about you, but as I advance in years I’ve become more contemplative of present and past and what might yet be.
As I look at our present world and the state of it, all sorts of thoughts begin to revolve and to show them selves. And as thoughts have a habit of doing because we are human, I begin to have a sense of foreboding. As I was trying disengage myself from depressive direction, a memory came to mind. I would like to explore with you that memory this morning and see where it takes us.
Reality Check
Reality Check
I was sitting on the floor with Cole this week and watching him look at things and pick things up and then he would look at me with a complete look of trust and acceptance in his eyes and he would go back to his play. He got bored so we went outside and found a place to sit and look at the world around us. Cole watched the dog for a while and then would reach out to touch some golden rod growing next to us. He again looked at me with perfect contentment and trust then returned to his world gazing.
As I sat with him, my thoughts began to turn to trials that we have in this world and the ones that I have been personally wrestling with the past couple of weeks. Then I began to think about the differences in the 2 of us. The little one in my lap didn’t have a care in the world. I on the other hand perceived myself to be burdened by many things: job, family, relationships, bills, upcoming travel, ect. ect. I found myself saying, Cole if only I could be like you again. I was longing for peace and tranquility. For my Dad to be alive again and tell me everything would work out and that the life around me would return to “normal”.
Am I the only one in this dilemma? Have any of you noticed lately as you talk with your friends that things are mostly beginning to change for the worse. There is more sickness, life problems; Churches are having more conflicts between members, job problems. The world has always had its problems, I know that, but with the strange agendas in or government these days, it seems like when you look around it is harder and harder to find peace in anyone’s life. I see it with patient’s I see, Jack sees it in the despair and destruction that comes through the ER doors at Mayo. Satan has doubled and even tripled his efforts at creating destruction and misery. He wants every last person on earth before his time runs out.
As Cole and I were setting there and I was pondering how lucky he was and looking at the evening beauty around me, a whisper intermingled with my thoughts. “You can have Cole’s peace and trust again” I almost missed it, but it came back again a little stronger. “You can have that peace and trust again”. Peace in this world now, is that possible?
As I thought about that I began to remember verses:
6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; 7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
27 Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
Peace?
Peace?
Peace and trust, that kind of peace, do we really understand what it means?
Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary says about peace: a state of tranquillity or quiet: as a : freedom from civil disturbance b : a state of security or order within a community provided for by law or custom
In Scripture, the term peace refers to a personal sense of well-being, wholeness, harmony, and security through a proper relationship with God and fellow men. The term may also refer to a restful and harmonious state of affairs among people or things or within a particular environment.
So let’s go looking for peace and trust, Where are we going to go to find such a thing. It can be reflected back to us in many things.
I saw it Coles eye’s and expression that day. For that kind of peace you have to ask the Lord to clean your heart of fear, resentment, prejudice, dissatisfaction, and the biggest and baddest of all words - self. Replace those with love learned from spending time with the author of love. Hold him close to your heart and don’t let anything chase him away. 1 John 4:18–19 (NKJV) tells us
18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. 19 We love Him because He first loved us.
How many of you can walk down a wooded path, with a gentle wind blowing through the leaves, birds singing in the trees, watch a deer walk a crossed the trail in front of you and not feel peace.
1 The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament shows His handiwork.
2 Day unto day utters speech,
And night unto night reveals knowledge.
3 There is no speech nor language
Where their voice is not heard.
4 Their line has gone out through all the earth,
And their words to the end of the world.
In them He has set a tabernacle for the sun,
Here are some thoughts from a magazine called the Bible Echo
The Bible Echo—The Bible Echo August 7, 1899: Teaching from Nature
Christ employed the things of nature to illustrate divine truth. He bade them speak, that man might heed the voice of God. He used as object-lessons the flowers He had created, and the things of the animal world. Under His teaching, nature utters her voice to declare the wonderful works of God, and to reprove man’s unbelief and his forgetfulness of his constant dependence upon the Creator.
“Take no thought for your life,” Christ said, “what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air; for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?” Consider the ravens. They neither sow nor reap; but they act the part God designed them to act, and He takes care of them. And will not that God who has given man all that he has, keep him in health and strength if he complies with the conditions by obedience to the laws of his being?
“Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature,” Christ asked. “And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” Let the lily, beautifully tinted and gracefully formed by the great Master-Artist, surpassing in its loveliness the artificial adorning of Solomon, teach us the lesson of simplicity and faith.
Finding it
Finding it
Mental note: I need to spend more with God and his creation than with worldly things. Now we have seen peace and trust, where does it come from?
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. 24 And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
17 for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful.
27 Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
16 Now may the Lord of peace Himself give you peace always in every way. The Lord be with you all.
How do we continue to stay at peace in our lives:
11 Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice, set things right, be encouraged, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.
18 And the fruit that consists of righteousness is planted in peace among those who make peace.
I have come to realize that peace can be an allusive thing. There is very little of it left in this world, but it is there. We will see and feel it if we look for it. We will have it if we learn where it comes from. It cannot be dispensed whole sale. It comes on an individual basis through the Holy Spirit.
1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” 2 He called a child, had him stand among them, 3 and said, “I tell you the truth, unless you turn around and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven! 4 Whoever then humbles himself like this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 And whoever welcomes a child like this in my name welcomes me.
Jesus showed the disciples want children meant to him. We are suppose to become as little children. Having said that, I don’t mean that we return to the mentality of child, but we need to be child like.
We need to trust that when we ask for something, we will have faith that it will be done. Not in our time frame but in God’s! We need to believe that Jesus will come through for us in all our needs no matter what, again not in our time frame but in His. Now you notice I said needs and not wants. But the Lord does want to do that for us too if they are what’s best for us.
Have you felt the lack of peace in your life? Do you feel as I do that we are going to need that peace and trust that Cole had and still does to survive what is happening to this world. Have seen today where to get the peace that passes all understanding. We have to find that peace and the Lord will help us get there. We need to if we want to see our true home.
I need to continually have that peace, how about you. We have learned today where it is at. Join me as I ask for it now.