Peace-Day 5

6For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6 NIV)

The kind of peace that the Prince of Peace offers is a deeply personal, permanent kind of peace which is quite different to the temporary kinds of peace we’re used to. I saw a young mum’s Facebook status update recently – her baby has had long periods of sickness and clearly there hasn’t been much peace (or sleep) for her of late. Peace for her is a well, quiet, sleeping, happy baby – and we know that’s going to be temporary at best. Think about a child living in a home where the adults won’t stop fighting. He or she longs for it to just stop. Something fundamentally must change. And then think about a soldier on watch in a war zone – it may have been a huge adventure at first but I imagine that quickly subsides and is replaced by fear and a desperate desire for the conflict to end so that he or she can go home. But we know wars break out again and it seems that the sort of peace we’re most familiar with in this life is often temporary.

Only the peace that we can draw on from the Prince of Peace is different. Only his peace has the capacity to speak to our past and present and future. Only that peace has the power to effect lasting change – within us first and then rippling out from us.

Question//
Identify the parts of your world that need peace – name the people and name the issues. Bring them before God in prayer.