Peace, Love & Joy

Peace – Absence of conflict
Love – Strong Affection
Joy – Happy, content, pleasure

Unfortunately in 2009 – many people only have “experiences” or “brief moments” of them descriptive words here. Sometimes you’ll feel joy when you win a game or after acing the latest quiz or test. Perhaps you’d feel Love after you’ve had strong feelings towards someone of the opposite gender. As for peace – well sometimes people do not ever experience peace – where, by definition is the absence of conflict, but for all intent and purposes we will say the absence of inner-conflict. And the next few days we’ll be talking about these three words – beginning with Peace.

The world that surrounds us fills us with anxiety, hatred, and misery. If you notice these adjectives are direct antonyms to the three defined above. This past week, I was led to Isaiah 30. When I arrived here I saw in verses 11-14 where Israel was pleading:

“Give us no more visions of what is Right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions.”

They wanted to gain “peace” by living in a fantasy world. They wanted to eat, drink, and be merry – forgetting everything God has done for them and required of them. But God responds with a warning:

“Because you have rejected this message and depended on deceit, this sin will become for you life a high wall, cracked and bulging, that collapses suddenly, in an instant.”

This was almost a promise from God that if they count on the world (Egypt) for Peace– the bottom will fall out from underneath them. They are hoping in something so fragile and so temporary – unlike the stronghold they could have in God.

1.) Be honest with yourself. List a few things you count on happening each day so that you may experience peace. Do you yearn on people’s approval? Do you count on being in the “in-crowd?” Like Israel, were you needed a sense of security/identity for something?

2.)Read Isaiah 30:1-14. Write down a few thoughts.

3.)Write out a prayer to God. In what areas of your life do you need help with peace? Plead with God and ask him to show you how to trust in him for peace.

Keep Rockin',

Joey