Peace In The Midst Of Chaos

Rest. It isn’t easy to come by.

Yet, rest and peace are promises of life in God’s Kingdom.

Come to Me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  – Matthew 11:28

Why, then, do we Christian parents feel weary and burdened much of the time? Why, when we do go to God, does it seem as if He isn’t giving us this rest He promises?

Most likely, when we ask for peace and rest, we are more truly asking for difficulty and hardship to go away. What we are asking for in those hard situations is an extraction of hardship.

But take a minute to consider: “Removal of hardship” might be different than a peace which exceeds anything we can understand.  – Philippians 4:7 [NLT]

Most of us can understand how removing the hardship would bring us rest and peace. This dynamic is exactly what we have in mind as we pray!

But a peace which "exceeds our understanding"? This might suggest a peace in the midst of chaos and hardship.

This variety of peace comes from putting ourselves in the hands of Christ. It is a relational step in a greater dance with God.

We want our homes to be places of redemption, order, beauty, peace, and rest – all those things we’ve read God’s Kingdom culture is about. We want our homes to be a sanctuary of His Kingdom. An oasis in the desert. But our homes rarely become this way by God magically removing hardship.

Tucked inside the book of Proverbs we find a prayer for peace and rest – one that lays open the above principle:

Give me neither poverty nor wealth;
feed me with the food I need.
Otherwise, I might have too much
and deny you, saying, “Who is the LORD?”
or I might have nothing and steal,
profaning the name of my God.
– Proverbs 30:8b-9

This prayer has to do with provision. But the principle holds true for any source of anxiety – a biblical model for seeding a Kingdom culture of peace and rest:

Lord, you know what I need. I trust you have me right where you want me – not spoiled with a ‘perfect life’, nor hopelessly abandoned. Keep me near you in this dance – that is my prayer: Keep me near you.