Peace in a Broken World

This morning I happened upon this troubling sight as I made my way around the neighborhood: an empty leash. For the rest of my walk I kept wondering, “Where is the dog?”

“What happened to the dog?” Then I added to those concerns, “What kind of dog was it?” “Was it a big dog or a little dog? Then, “What color was the dog?” “What breed?” “Did they have a lot of energy and a big personality?”. I’m a dog person, so the empty leash set my mind off on a wild ride.

During times as anxious and as difficult as those which greet us these days, it is easy to let one thing cloud all our thinking. It is easy to become so consumed with one thought that everything else around us fades into the shadows. This can lead us to seek out only that which feeds our obsession and to become deaf to other voices and blind to the reality of things. This spiral leads us further and further down a path that becomes more narrow day by day until, in our mind, there is room for little else. This is seldom, if ever, a healthy place to live.

These are the times we so desperately need peace. We need peace in our hearts and minds to get us through until there is peace in our relationships or peace in our land or peace in our world. I like these words from the letter to the Philippians, “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

In those hardest of times, peace is more valuable than answers. Answers don’t change the circumstances, but peace changes our experience of life in the midst of the toughest of times. Peace guards us from the emptiness of a life spent so lost in our obsessions that we miss the fullness and joy of life that can be ours each day, even in this terribly broken world.

Peace.