Author: Jennifer

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Above and Beyond Peace of Mind – Part 2

Now that I have really worked through what exactly the peace of Christ is (“Above and Beyond Peace of Mind – Part 1), I have a far better understanding of where I was originally going with this verse. During my first writing, I casually brushed over that phrase.  But once I really started digging into it, it became clear to me that I needed to be able to adequately explain why His peace is so completely peaceful.

And all of the thinking and searching and googling and concordance checking was more than worth it. Now I have something concrete in my mind — reasons why the peace of Christ is so outrageously exceedingly great that it surpasses understanding.

But I must add one more very cool thing I discovered while studying this verse. And that is this… I looked up the Hebrew word for rule and discovered that it means to act as umpire.  And so I asked a baseball expert to tell me what exactly an umpire does.  This is what he told me.  An umpire does all of the following:
rules on fair balls and foul balls
calls balls and strikes
calls players safe or out
controls the flow and tempo of the game
controls player and coach behavior
uses discretion
calls interference
makes “on the fly” decisions
makes judgment on plays
determines strike zone
gives warnings
throws people out if necessary

So, if I let the peace of God do its job, I’d find that it would control my heart by informing me when my thoughts or actions are foul.  It would allow me to determine healthy boundaries. It would set the pace in all my circumstances. It would guide my behavior and my reaction to the behavior of others.  It would warn me when I was getting into something that would bring me harm.  It would keep me steady. It would give me the wisdom in situations that called for an immediate response. It would give me the discretion I need in order to stay peaceful.   I would have peace of mind rather than the free-for-all fighting that goes on within me at times.

He sees the whole game.  Me and everyone else.  He’s fair.  He’s completely qualified.  He is the final authority.  So if I notice a loss of peace in my heart, then the peace of Christ (the umpire) is just doing it’s job.

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Above and Beyond Peace of Mind – Part 1

“Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts..:“ Colossians 3:15

Peace of Christ…. hmmm…. clearly (to me anyway) that’s not the same thing as peace of mind, because I’ve been known to do all sorts of things to try to ensure that I have that.  I’ve opened bank accounts and investment accounts so that my money would be safe.  But I still wonder if it’s in the right place or if it could all disappear.  I have car insurance and health insurance so that I don’t need to worry about accidents or bad health.  Yet I do, because illness and accidents happen.  My lesson plan book and materials are ready for the next school day so that I don’t waste one moment of my life away from work worrying about work. But there’s often something more I wish I’d done.

I try to be careful about my actions and decisions and words so that my life is not chaotic.  But sometimes I fail and my life explodes.  Yeah, no peace of mind in any of that, because it’s me trying to make peace happen depending upon my own strength in a world of no guarantees.

Even in the best of times, I have found that my mind still is aware that everything could suddenly change without warning.  My ability to contain myself and situations has limitations.  So whatever amount of peace I am able to create is very fragile.  And fragile things make me nervous. The peace of Christ, on the other hand, is peace that I have because He reconciled me to God. That means that He took the blame for all the sins of my life – past, present, and future. So I can rest in the fact that I have been declared innocent in the eyes of God.  He doesn’t see me as a hopeless, worthless case.  He sees me as the beautiful creation of His own hand.  I have the assurance of His presence in my life at all times day and night and the promise of His exceedingly great power at work in me.

I can be confident knowing that no matter what happens, He is ultimately in control of everything and will work it all together for good.  He knows my every thought and commiserates with my every feeling.   This peace is not of this world.  It is peace at all times and in every circumstance. Perfect peace.  Peace that surpasses understanding.

I need to allow that to rule my heart.

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Covered in Poop?

“…walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith…”  Colossians 2:6

Having just watered all my potted plants, the word rooted caught my attention in this verse.  My tomato plant is not doing well.  It was once a deep healthy green and full of blooms and baby tomatoes on their way to full maturity.  A few delicious red ones did make it all the way to their full growth size over the past couple of months.  But most had black bottoms — something about the soil needing more nutrients.  I fixed that problem.

But now the few green tomatoes left on the plant are being attacked by a caterpillar.  I figured this out immediately, even though on first inspection I didn’t see any damage.  All I saw was caterpillar poop on the leaves.  Looking closer, I found more not good stuff — a hole where the pest had chewed his way into one of the tomatoes.  Gross.

I’m sad (and seriously disgusted), because I had such high hopes for this plant.  I did mean to repot it in a bigger container filled with more soil so that it would have every advantage and be able to supply me with an abundance of tomatoes.  I knew the roots would get too long for that pot and the plant would suffer.  But I got busy and didn’t do anything about it.

And so, the plant is suffering.  Caterpillar poop, dead blooms with no tiny tomatoes taking their place, dead leaves mixed with pale green leaves. Damaged tomatoes.  What did I expect?  Yes, I watered it faithfully and fertilized it.  It had as much sun as my balcony offered.  It was sprayed at the first sign of insects. Usually. When I remembered to look closely.  But the soil is where the roots are.  And the plant has outgrown the soil.  It seems as though it is fighting hard to produce SOMEthing, but that’s all that’s going to be happening if I don’t rescue it.

That’s kind of like my life when I don’t surround myself with God’s word, when I don’t stay alert to Satan’s attacks, or when I shorten my time with Him because I’m too busy.  I stop growing.  I lack luster.  My love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control – my fruit – is full of holes.  I’m attacked.  I’m weak.  And I feel like I’m covered in poop!

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A Merciful Memorial

This past summer I began a study of the book of Romans.  This is from my journal, written on July 19th…“Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another…” Romans 12:10

Kindly affectionate in Greek means cherishing one’s kindred; fondness of natural relatives; fraternal toward fellow Christians.  The idea repeats itself a few words later, “with brotherly love”. 

So, I am to think of my fellow Christians as my family.  I am to value them and esteem them so highly, and let that set the tone for how I treat them.  In fact, we are all to do this to each other.  If we are all esteeming and valuing each other, we are all setting examples for each other.  We fill each other with value.

I wrote that much and stopped.  And then I wrote:

Hard to concentrate.  Today is my dad’s memorial service.

I didn’t think I had anymore to write about.  I thought the verse was very clear.  It didn’t seem that there was much to elaborate on.  But I was frustrated, because I like to have a finished thought and an “Ah-ha! moment” at the end of my writings.  At the same time, I wondered what I was doing trying to even think deeply at that particular moment.  My head was so full of my dad and my heart was so full of the sadness of missing him.  And then I understood just why I’d read that verse that day.  The rest of the journal page says this:

This verse is so fitting for today and for my dad, because he did this every single day to everyone.

The passage in Romans goes on to say, “…not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer; distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality.”

Anyone who knew my dad would have to agree.  All of that was who my dad was.  What a particularly tender mercy from God I felt as I understood why my study of that book led me to being in those exact verses on that exact day.  While I was grieving, I was (and continue to be) so thankful that God blessed me with a dad who set such a loving example for me to follow.

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Dad’s Home

My dad is no longer here on Earth with us.  He is gone.  Gone — almost like he was when I was growing up.  He was often away from home on business trips.  He was gone.  Somewhere else.  Well, the same is true now.  He has gone somewhere else.  Heaven.  And when I dwell on that fact, I find great comfort (and a little envy as well)!

When I was growing up, if my dad was in Monterey, California — one of the places he used to travel to for business — I would be able to picture that.  I’d been there myself, so I knew what it looked like.  If my dad was in Ohio — another place he often went to on business trips — I would have had to find books  with pictures and descriptions of the place, because I’d never been there.  But I would have been able to get a pretty good idea of what Ohio was like.

My dad is in Heaven.  I have never been there.  But I do have a book that tells me about it.  My Bible.  I will admit that a lot of it (the parts about Heaven) are confusing.  I think that’s because Heaven is so hard to describe with human words. 

But this is what I am confident of:  He is present with the Lord.

“So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord.  For we walk by faith, not by sight.  We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.” (II Corinthians 5:6-8)

He is dwelling in the house of the Lord.   

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” (Psalm 23:6)

He is living in complete and perfect health.  He will never experience pain again. He will never be sad again.  He will never cry again. 

“And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying.  There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:4)

My dad is still who he was.  Same personality.  He is just now in Heaven instead of here with us.  So…

He’s busy greeting people with his smile and finding out everything about them.  He’s having indescribably happy reunions with family and friends.  He’s singing with the Heavenly choir.  He’s tending to the gardens.  He is playing with the children.  He’s learning.  He’s running.  He’s laughing.

He’s finally seeing himself as God has always known him.  And all the layers of regret and the limitations of sin and imperfections are gone!  He is worshiping God.  He’s in awe of the beauty around him just as he was awed by nature here on Earth.  He’s happy!  He is complete.

I miss him so much.  But as long as I remember where he is and the fact that I will see him again, I can bear the temporary loss of him much easier.  And like I already said, I’m a little envious!

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