>
"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid."
John 14:27 (ESV)"The peace of God is not inactivity, nor is it placidity; it is the possession of a power which is power indeed. It has the energy of a conquered world put at the disposal of a conqueror. The peace of Christ is the peace of a man who has been through a battle and won. It is not the peace of one who has never fought; it is the peace of one who has ceased to fight because the enemy is defeated."
-- G.K. Chesterton
"The opposite of patience is not impatience but the inability to wait, the refusal to accept the rhythm of God's time. … Practicing patience means remaining in active and expectant waiting for the coming of the Lord, rather than running ahead of God."
-- Henri Nouwen, *The Spiritual Life*
"But we are the same as those who always trusted in God, and we do not fear those who kill us and then have nothing more they can do. For those who are our persecutors are slaves of the evil demons, who are unable to persuade us to deny our God. … We do not fear death, for we know that we must die, and we believe that we will rise again."
-- Justin Martyr, *First Apology*, Chapter 57 (c. 155 AD)
"We live in what one writer has called 'the age of sensation.' We think that if we don't feel something there can be no authenticity in doing it. But the wisdom of God says something different: that we can act ourselves into a new way of feeling much quicker than we can feel ourselves into a new way of acting. Worship is an act that develops feelings for God, not a feeling for God that is expressed in an act of worship. When we obey the command to praise God in worship, our deep, essential need to be in relationship with God is nurtured."
-- Eugene Peterson, *A Long Obedience in the Same Direction*
If the peace Christ gives doesn't depend on circumstances being resolved, what would it look like to carry that peace into the hardest conversation you'll have today?
"The man who has many affairs to attend to needs to regulate his life, for most things, if they are not so regulated, drag us to and fro. … We must therefore control our minds, and they must observe what they wish, not what they happen to see."
-- Cicero, *De Officiis*, Book I
St. Clair, MI: Mist, +52°F, Humidity: 94%, Wind: ↗6mph