Serendipity: Peace
I call Matthew
If you remember our last devotional, serendipity is something that happens to
you on the way to something else. It
is a by-product of a search for something higher.
Many of the best things in life are serendipities.
You can’t find them by looking for them, no matter how hard you try.
But when you stop looking and focus on something higher, they are given
to you. They are a by-product.
Peace is like that. Everyone talks
about peace. Everyone is looking
for peace. The whole world
searches for it and it seems everything is justified by our quest for it.
But you know what? We are
at less peace today than probably ever before.
No matter how hard we look or how hard we try, we just can’t seem to
find it.
Pilate looked at Christ and said, “Peace, peace, there is no peace!”
Kind of ironic, isn’t it? Here
Pilate is looking at the “Prince of Peace,” and yet in his own heart he is
a million miles from it.
Not much as changed in the last two thousand years.
Leaders have talked about peace, discussed it, held world -wide
conferences on it, and yet like Pilate we exclaim, “There is no peace!”
We need to discover that peace is a serendipity.
You can’t find it by looking for it; it comes in a quest for
something higher—something like seeking Christ and following Him.
Of course, Jesus didn’t promise us an earthly peace because we choose
to follow Him. On the contrary,
many have suffered and died horrific deaths because they chose to follow
Christ.
Jesus’ words were, “Peace I leave with you.
Peace I give unto you. Not
as the world gives do I give to you. Let
not your hearts be troubled…”
The peace that Christ gives far exceeds anything the world can comprehend.
And it is a gift from God, a serendipity that comes as we seek to serve
Him. In and of itself, it is
impossible to gain. But when we
give our heart to Christ and we strive to serve Him in this world, His peace
fills our life and it “passes all understanding!”
The peace of Christ is the peace of the soul, and no worldly problem or
circumstance can penetrate its powerful walls.
It fills our lives and gives us power to face the difficulties of this
world. And it comes to us freely
when we turn to Christ.
The world will continue to search for peace, and peace will continue to elude
the world. But those who seek the