On Becoming Truer

“How will you escape being condemned to hell?” – Jesus

I’m a bit taken back by all the cyber-energy that has exploded as a result of Rob Bell’s upcoming book about the nature of the afterlife. His choice of subject matter has certainly touched a sensitive nerve in many people.

After writing my first piece about this hailstorm of reaction, I’ve learned that folks in my circle vary from (1) not caring, to (2) thinking that conclusions one has about the afterlife plays part in determining where you go when you get to it, to the more moderate response of (3) just wanting to dialogue, study, and contemplate it a bit to consider the nature of God a little more.

Where do I sit? I’m a huge fan of attitude #3, a convicted opponent of attitude #2, but strangely I find myself strangely tempted towards attitude #1, not caring too much, at least about this aspect of the subject.

But, of course, in a larger sense, I do care. For example, I have asked and answered the above question posed by Jesus for me personally, at first as a young man with urgency and fury, and at last a bit older with peaceful intensity and intense peace. And it is not entirely accurate to say that it the past tense, really. Maybe I should say that I am asking and answering it.

So why am I tempted to not care about the particular angle on this subject that has currently peaked the interest of so many, you might ask?

Because the answer I landed on does not require knowing for sure the exact nature of the afterlife in order to escape hell.

• I don’t need to know whether heaven will have physical streets and gates (Rev 21:21) or is more of a state of being (Rom 14:17).
• I don’t need to know if hell is eternal punishment (Mt 25:46) or eternal destruction (2 Pt 3:7).
• I don’t need to know if my resurrection from the dead will be as a purely spiritual being (1 Cor 15:44) or in a more glorious physical body (1 Cor 15:42).
• I don’t need to know if Jesus is coming soon (Rev 22:12), coming much later (2 Pt 3:8), or has already come (Mt 24:34).
• I don’t need to know if people’s only chance to escape hell comes in this life (Mt 10:33) or if they will have a chance to repent in the next life (Rev 21:6).
• I don’t need to know if there is one generic reward called heaven (Luke 12:33), 3 heavens (2 Cor 12:2), or degrees of reward in heaven (Mt 6:20).
• I don’t need to know if few (Mt 7:13-14), most (Mt 12:31-32), or all (2 Pt 3:9) people are going to be there with me.
• I don’t need to know whether God is going to be fair based on my judgment of fairness (Job 38-40:1).
• I don’t need to decide whether Jesus spoke within the culturally accepted view of hell at the time he was here in order to make a point, or if he was confirming this view of hell as accurate by using it (Lk 16:19-31)
• I don’t even need to know whether to spell heaven as “Heaven” or “heaven” or Hell as “Hell” or “hell”.

Now, I do have beliefs about these things. I do believe there is truth about them, and there is falsehood. And I have no problem with disagreement, lively debate, or firm and committed positions by convinced and convicted people on these or any subject. I myself enjoy dialoguing, studying, and contemplating them. I’ve learned much about God through them, and continue to do so.

But they are much more academic in nature than imperative. They are interesting, even useful, for some folks in their journey towards God, but in answering the above question of Christ, they are not necessary.

You don’t need to accurately know about the nature of hell in order to effectively escape it. And you don’t need others to agree with your conclusions about hell in order to consider them your allies in the fight against it.

I guess we all have a line somewhere. A line that dictates to us what you need to know and what you don’t. For me, it is quite liberating figuring out what you don’t need to know.

And the best way to figure that out is to go looking for what you do need to know. That’s why I don’t go looking for Hell.

I once was sitting with my wife at a time-share in Conroe, TX when a Canadian guy joined us. We struck up a conversation where I learned that he was a Mountie (a member of the Canadian national police force). He told me he was in the division that dealt with counterfeit money.

He asked me, “You know how you learn to identify a counterfeit bill?” 

I assumed you needed to know all the latest and greatest ways of printing fake money. That you needed to study the tricks of the trade, be familiar with the details of the various crafts, know all the mistakes and shortcomings found in each false process used to print fake money. And I told him so.

He smiled and said, “Nope. You don’t need to know anything about the counterfeits. You just need to focus on and become intimate with the real thing. That’s all you need to know.”

“Everything that does not measure up to the real thing,” he said, “isn’t the real thing.”

Seems to me that all I need to know about Hell is the answer to Christ’s question above. Whatever hell is, and however God uses it for His own glory, and whoever ends up going there…how will I escape it?

The disciple John says it well, and I have accepted this as my response to Christ’s question, and am spending the rest of my life learning it, practicing it, teaching it, living it, sharing it, and enjoying it.

He says, “God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.” – 1 John 5:11-12

Why go looking for hell? Go looking for life instead. Look for the fullest possible one available to human beings. You will find Christ. You will find the life he brings from God is eternal – meaning you will never stop learning it, practicing it, teaching it, living it, sharing it, and enjoying it.

And what’s more, you will escape being condemned to hell without needing to know a thing about it.

“You diligently study the scriptures. You should be diligently studying me.” – Jesus Christ (my interpretation of John 5:39-40)

I’m back to a subject that is important if Christianity is to survive as a power within the human race.

It is the subject of how to read the Bible.

Is there a Bad Way to Read the Bible?

Sure there is. Different approaches result in different conclusions. Many of which the Bible wasn’t written to provide.

For example, if you approach the Bible with the question, “How do you build a boat?” you might stumble upon God’s directions to Noah in Genesis 6 on how he was to build the Ark. You then might conclude that this is the “Biblical” way to build a boat, and to do so in any other way is not “Biblical,” and therefore should be avoided (at least), and made into a condition of salvation (at worst). Silly, I know, but stick with me here…

Imagine a good hearted Christian woman, quite disturbed, telling her preacher that “we just don’t ever hear sermons about how to build boats.” When asked why she desires to hear that preached, she responds with “because the Bible tells us how to build a boat. We need to follow the Bible.”

The question here is not “Does the Bible have anything to say about how to build a boat?” It does. Genesis 6. The question here is “Was the Bible written to teach us how to build boats?” It wasn’t. The lesson? Don’t approach the Bible in a way the Bible hasn’t told you to. You’ll end up following ideas that are “in the Bible” (ie: Biblical) that have nothing to do with Jesus Christ (who saves you).

This understanding would save many, many debates and avoid many, many divisions between Christians over so many “Biblical” issues. 

Here’s a more realistic, less silly example: If you approach the Bible with the question “How do you sing songs in a public worship service?” you might stumble upon King David’s appointment of people to use different sorts of instruments to accompany the “sacred song” (1 Chronicles 15-16:42). A few pages over, you might take note that these are called “the Lord’s instruments,” used specifically for “praising the Lord” (2 Chronicles 7:6). You then might run into all the Psalms that specifically instruct the use of those instruments alongside them (Psalm 4, 6, 54, 55, 61, 67, 76), and feel like you are starting to get a pretty good “Biblical” picture of how you should sing songs in public worship. You might then read the words of Paul to the Colossians (3:16), telling them to continue singing those psalms of David, assuming that he’s instructing them to do so in the way David wrote and intended them. Seal it up with the teaching that this kind of instrumental accompaniment will continue in Heaven (Rev 15:2-4), and you might feel confident concluding that the “Biblical” way to sing songs in a public worship service is with “the Lord’s” musical instruments to accompany the “sacred song”.

So imagine a good hearted Christian man in his minister’s office, telling him that “we just don’t ever hear about how we should worship with musical instruments.” When asked why he desires that to be preached, he responds with “because the Bible tells us to worship with instruments. We need to follow the Bible.”

The question here is not “Does the Bible have anything to say about how songs are sung in public worship services?” The question here is “Was the Bible written to prescribe how we should sing songs in public worship services?”

A very current example, and perhaps even less silly than either of my first ones, is the cyber-debate going on between Rob Bell fans and John Piper fans (I happen to be both) concerning their alleged convictions about whether a few, most, or any people will go to Hell or not. Plenty of folks have written about this, so I won’t here, but generally I like these thoughts about the whole thing…if you were wondering.

As important and interesting (and potentially useful) a conversation as it is,  the Bible wasn’t written for us to judge and decide who is or who isn’t going to Hell. Approaching it in that way, looking for the answer to that question, leaves us confused at best, or holding our conclusions over others as a test of salvation (or worthiness of fellowship) at worst.

“Farewell, Rob Bell” is what John Piper was compelled to tweet when Rob concluded differently than he.

“Farewell, Lutherans” is what the Catholic church “tweeted” when Luther posted his differences.

“Farewell, Independent Christian Church” is what Church of Christer’s  “tweeted” when they saw nothing wrong with accompanying sacred song with musical instruments.

“May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me,” is what Jesus prayed about us.

We are going to have doctrinal differences. Must they destroy our unity in Christ alone?

Farewell, Christlikeness.

“Farewell, Christlikeness” is what we all “tweet” when we think getting all (or some particular) Bible doctrine right matters in terms of our salvation.

Hear me: It is not the reading of the Bible that is problematic among Christians. It is what Christians read the Bible in order to get that has caused all the trouble.

My sweet daughter is 9. I’m already having to talk to her about boys (!) who are approaching her. The older she gets, the more I’m going to have to deal with it. You may not believe me, but I don’t have a problem with boys approaching my daughter. What I will be watching out for, and potentially having HUGE problems with, is what those boys are approaching my daughter in order to get from her.

In the same way, God has not problem with us approaching the Bible. But what we go to Bible in order to get from it…well, I think He has serious concerns.

Why? Because approaching the Bible in different ways extracts different sets of rules, different primary doctrines, and different guidelines, beliefs, and convictions…all from the very same Bible! This has resulted in embarrassing divisions among and between well intentioned Christians (throughout history, and most recently, between Bell and Piper), all of whom are equally armed with the authority of “being Biblical” in their position.

And worse than the separation it causes among Christians is the separation it causes between Christians and the world.

Many of the categories produced by well meaning, but uncalled-for, approaches to scripture are irrelevant to the actual well-being of the human heart, the healing of the human spirit, the guiding of the human life, the creating of loving relationships among  humankind, or “rightness” between them and God.

These flawed conclusions too often make Christianity look like a foolish set of stubborn beliefs, or adherence to some superficial religious sacraments or practices, or merely an intolerant and demanding conformity to a certain moral code. Trust me, the world is quick to notice that not only can Christians not agree on them (or even discuss them with grace in the context of safe and secure brotherhood in Christ), but they are irrelevant at best, useless & not worth their time at worst. 

So How Should We Approach the Bible?

So here I set forth, as clearly as I can, a way of reading the Bible that, at this point in my life, seems to be the only way to read it that brings the power of God that it claims to contain for real live human beings. It is the only way of reading the Bible that I see Jesus promoting and condoning himself (John 5:39-40). It is the only way of reading the Bible that actually makes it useful for the life of righteousness that Paul claimed in was useful for (1 Timothy 3:16)

Approach the Bible to find Jesus Christ.

Look for him. Fix your eyes on him. Fix your mind on him. Look for his attitude. Look for his heart. Look for his mission. Look for his priorities. Read for his way. Read for his truth. Read for his life. Follow him. Be clothed with him. Be buried with him. Be resurrected with him. Depend on him. Live in him. Be lived in by him. Imitate him. Become like him. Follow his example. Walk as he did. Be transformed into his image.

Approach the Bible to find him.

If you ever get done with all of that, which the Bible clearly calls all men to do unto life, then maybe you’ll have some time to figure out the sure fire answers to all of those lesser doctrines. Maybe then you’ll have time to get in a wad about whether or not your preacher preaches about them enough, or whether your brother is really your brother based on them, or whether knowing the absolute irrefutable truth about them would save and change the world any better than just a simple and faithful pursuit of and faith in the Person of Jesus Christ. 

A relationship with Jesus, according to Jesus, is the very definition of eternal life anyway (John 17:3). So why go to the Bible for anything but to grow in this “eternal life”? In other words, why go to the Bible for anything but to grow in your relationship with Jesus?

The Bible (and it’s doctrine) is not the point. The Bible (and it’s doctrine) is the pointer. And it points to Jesus Christ. According to the Bible, it is Christ and Christ alone that saves. According to the Bible, how you publicly worship, and what you believe about Heaven and Hell, and who might be “in” or “out” has about as much bearing on whether or not you are saved as how you build a boat.

What I love about both Bell and Piper (and most Christians, for that matter) is that they DO approach the Bible. And every single subject that can be explored and addressed by doing so, I downright enjoy it. But only insomuch as it helps me get to know Christ.

But when those subjects, and getting them right, become the end unto itself – and especially when some Christians starts acting like it matters in terms of my relationship (hear: “salvational”) status with God – I feel like Jesus Christ is, in light of the sacrifice he offered with blood, offended.

God help us. God be with us.

“Integrity is telling myself the truth. Honesty is telling the truth to other people.” – Spencer Johnson

“The man dedicated to integrity finds himself always travelling. And the man dedicated to honesty attracts others who want to go and repels those that like where they are too much. ” – Yours Truly

At my core, I am a traveler.

Is it because I am a traveler that I have made my life about truth and honesty? Or has making my life about truth and honesty made me a traveler? I’m not sure.

At any rate, along the proverbial road of my most recent journey, I have come upon a “town” that has sucked me into liking it so much that it threatens my travels. It could kill my spirit, energy, and gusto. It could threaten my mission, character, and priorities. Liking something too much (anything really: an idea, a possession, a person, a way of doing things, a certain income level, etc) can attach me to it in a way that it could steal my very life!

The temptation to “have things figured out” or “stay within known parameters” is so large and looming with it’s convenience, consistency and perceived safety that, for many, it is worth giving up on both integrity and honesty, which demand constant movement, change, and challenge.

But at my core, I am a traveler.

So…like I say to myself when I am out running a few miles and want to quit, I say it to myself again…

Keep. On. Moving.

And I am completely clear that these words do not come from me.

Click http://shop.ebay.com/brianmash/m.html and some more really cool old books can be yours.

I added some very rare Christian classics!

Check out http://shop.ebay.com/brianmash/m.html for 3 more cool old books I’m selling to finance my big trip with my son Shade this summer.

A lot of 7 books entitled “The World’s Famous Orations” printed in 1906.

An 1893 copy of “Wholly Sanctified” written by Reverend AB Simpson. Simpson was the founder of the Christian Missionary Alliance and a mentor of AW Tozer.

And a 1905 copy of a book called “Guidance from Robert Browning in Matters of Faith” by John A Hutton. This is one is signed by Hutton.

I hope to put some more on there this weekend…including an old Bible, an old Andrew Murray book, and an old copy of Brother Lawrence’s “Practicing the Presence of God”. I appreciate ya’ll forwarding this on to people who you think might be interested.

I posted here about my next big adventure with my oldest son, so I won’t tell you again about that being the motivation for the sale of these cool books. For those new to my blog, I’m a way, way, way amateur collector of old books. I enjoy it, but I’m not so committed to these “old stories” that I don’t gladly give them up to finance the writing of some new stories with my kids.

These books for sale span 4 centuries of human history.

This one was published in the 1600s!

This one in the 1700s.

This one was printed in the 1800s.

This one is quite special. Printed in the early 1900s, it is signed by Rev AW Tozer. (I re-listed this because it didn’t hit my obviously too optimistic reserve last time. I’ve lowered it to $200).

And this one is from the 1960s, another very cool piece of Church of Christ/Restoration Movement history. Like new.

Thanks to those of you who consistently bid (or forward these on to people who do) when I do this.

On another note of gratitude, the December invitation to give the Christmas gift of survival meals to hungry orphans and widows in Zimbabwe resulted in the provision of over 75,000 meals!

I can’t thank you all enough.

I love and appreciate you.

Note: This is a piece written by my old college roommate Robert San Juan. May everyone have compassion.

So I was on the train going to work this morning and I was sitting behind this gentleman in a yellow raincoat. I wouldn’t say he was one of the many homeless that jump on the train to keep warm, but I will say he looked down on his luck.

He looked to be over 60, with glasses, a moustache and a dirty baseball cap. He was filling out a work application for some random burger joint that I had never heard of. In the space that was labeled “Where did you hear about us?” he wrote “craigslist” and dotted the “I” with a hollow circle.

Out of his worn bag he then pulled out 3 worn pieces of notebook paper. Those three pieces of paper were entirely covered in the same tiny handwritten scrawl, the i’s all dotted with circles. There was not an empty space left anywhere on the pages. There was writing cross-ways, up the sides, running horizontally and vertically. It looked like a prop from the movie “A Beautiful Mind”… and my first reaction to those pages was “oh no… I bet he’s crazy”. There were barely any spaces between the words making the handwriting almost illegible. ALMOST illegible.

As we rode the train together, he pulled the pages closer to his face so he could read them better, and in effect pulling it closer to me (And yes I did ashamedly invade his privacy by reading over his shoulder). As I studied the pages along with him I realized that every single “entry” on the page was information about jobs… managerial contacts… phone numbers… addresses… websites… URLs… he was really… REALLY looking for a job… somewhere, he had been lucky enough to gain access to a computer and had hand written all of this information on these three pieces of paper in his search for a job…

I found myself feeling severely ashamed that I had so quickly judged him… I felt angry that this man, that so badly wanted a job and wanted to work, did not have one… and I felt sad that I did not have a job to offer him… I wanted to ask him what sort of job he was looking for, thinking I might be able to help him… but was conflicted in that I would have to admit that I had been snooping over his shoulder, or that I might offend his pride in doing so. Before I could make up my lazy, self centered mind, he was up and off the train before I realized it.

So all I have for him now, this man in the yellow raincoat, is prayer. I’m praying for him. Praying that he was getting off the train for a job interview and will be employed very soon… I also have my ability to request prayers for him on his behalf, from those that are believers in prayer… so please pray for him, and all those like him that are searching so hard to provide for themselves and those that they love.

To the man in the yellow raincoat… thank you. Thank you for putting a little more perspective to my day. And I hope you are blessed with more than what you were ever looking for.

“Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” – Genesis 1:2

I’ve spent much of my life wanting to experience the Spirit of God.

I have traveled to mountains high above the earth and into caves deep below – just for the chance.

I have sung my voice out with a thousand ecstatic worshippers in the stadium and I have laid prostrate silently with a few monks in the monastery – craving Him.

I have spent hours immersed in the most beautiful and stunning scenes of creation and just as many surrounded by plain and unimpressive walls of brown sheetrock – looking for Him.

I have holes in my jeans from being on my knees in prayer, paper cuts from turning the pages of scripture, stacks of highlighted notes from attending seminars, information overload from reading books, and a sort of interpersonal numbness, if you will, from having listened to so many people who have tried to guide me to the mysterious place where I can reliably find this Spirit that is so Holy.

The journey has not been in vain, or without pleasure. But through it all, there is only one place where I have learned to find my experience of the Spirit of God most consistently.

In the darkness.

I would have never read it this way before my journey, but not 2 verses into the Bible’s story, actually pre-day one of Creation, I am told where to find this least visible, most mysterious Person of the Trinity.

In the darkness.

According to this verse, right at the beginning, there were two things hanging out together over the deep waters of emptiness and formlessness that was earth at the time: Darkness, and the Spirit of God.

In a poetic way (and the creation story is recorded as poetry), I have found this to be practically true.

If I can say that I have experienced the Holy Spirit at all in my life (and I hesitate to trust anyone who is a little too certain that they have), then it has been, more than anywhere else, over the deep, dark places of my life. As I look honestly, the Spirit of God hovers most obviously “over the waters” of…

• My most tragic memories
• My most shameful failures
• My most difficult (and impossible) circumstances
• My most intense and inconvenient emotions
• My most confusing and brain twisting intellectual dilemmas

I don’t say this with total elation, mind you. I would prefer that the Holy Spirit be found in the light and full places rather than the dark and empty ones. I wish this Spirit hung out more often in my very structured world rather than in some formless one. If the Spirit of God hovered over the shallow puddles that take shape on my driveway after a good rain rather than over the deep waters of some dark ocean, I think I would more often journey to Him.

But that is not where I have found him. Not most consistently. Not most reliably.

I have found Him and experienced Him (again, if I have at all) by embracing and telling my whole story, by owning and confessing my sins, by admitting and walking into my most scary situations, by being attentive to and learning from (but not owned by) my emotions, and by being open to and fearless about being wrong.

I’m far from being done learning about what and where the Spirit of God is. And I know it seems counter-intuitive to say that you should go to the “dark” to find Him, when Jesus and Paul spend so much time talking about walking in the light.

To that I say – and I speak from a position of experience rather than theological knowledge – I have best been able to see and experience God as Light on the backdrop of the darkness.

That’s where I find him. In the darkness. My belief is that you will find Him most reliably there.

“As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.” – Luke 9:51

I have given in to the annual introspective gravity of New Years, and true to form, have looked for guidance from Jesus (it seems more and more that I can do nothing of significance without some sort of connection to him to justify it).

It seems a bit odd to me that this resolve made by Jesus was necessary at all. My view of him is that he had “resolutely set out” for his mission of love in Jerusalem long before this moment.

His resolve showed up countless times…

• …like when he didn’t give into Satan’s 3 temptations in the desert.
• …like when he walked away from the people who wanted to make him their earthly king.
• …like how he persevered with his slow-to-believe-or-understand disciples.
• …like when he came from heaven to earth in the first place.

He seems like a pretty resolute guy, you know? But here he is…resolving once again to stay on mission. Resolving, perhaps, to take his next appropriate step towards that mission at the appropriate time.

“What do I need to resolve to stay on mission?” it makes me ask. “What is my next appropriate step towards my  mission at this time?”

It’s a good question for all of us.

I like to think of myself as a pretty resolved kind of guy. I know my mission and I try to protect it and live it out with zeal and gusto.

Knowing your mission is of paramount importance. It provides you with the luxury of what you need to say “no” to in your life. But there are still plenty of decisions within that mission that must be discerned, decided upon, and then resolutely set out for.

I love Jesus for being a model of this for me.

Do you know your mission? Do you know your next step appropriate step towards it?

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” – Jesus

I can’t identify the precise moment when it changed, but I remember life before making a priority of peace.

Back then, I didn’t think twice about sacrificing peace at the alter of busyness. I killed it often at the alter of meeting other people’s “needs”, demands, and expectations. Sometimes, peace got bled by me at the alter of my own insecurity, striving, and image management. Less often, but most painful for me, I killed peace at the alter of worry, control, and worse-case-scenario fantasies.

Those were tiring, soul-starving, non-stop-action days. I was “there” for a lot of people. I was “appreciated” for my hard work. I was “honored” for how well I performed. I was “proud” of all the “accomplishments” I saw in my life.

But I was not at peace. I lacked a deep and abiding, untouchable and transcending peace.

These days, whenever the peace of my heart is compromised, I notice. And reestablishing it’s integrity immediately becomes the priority of all my energy. Why? Because without a peaceful spirit, I stop trusting anything I say or do. Without a peaceful spirit, I know that everything in my thinking is skewed. Everything I do, say, and feel are suspect.

So I basically put everything on hold to explore and resolve what is going on inside of me…and let me be clear about one thing I’ve learned…it most assuredly IS inside of ME that the problem of peacelessness resides, no matter how much I’d like to attribute it to outward circumstances.

Jesus said, “Do not let your heart be troubled.” He implies a certain amount of power available to us here, an inward authority over the troubled heart.

He goes on to suggest that he gives a certain kind of peace (“my peace,” he says).

And his kind of peace, evidently, is not available from our outward circumstances in the world (“I do not give as the world gives,” he says).

So why, then, do we work so hard to create or control outward circumstances to try to feel peace? Why do we pretend that if “so and so” would just do things different, or if “such and such” wasn’t happening, that all would then be well?

No, the problem of peacelessness is not in the world. It is in us. There are certain circumstances that are not yours or mine to change. And there are certain people that are present, not to torment you, but to play a provocative role in your ability to develop a self-responsible, eyes-wide-open, invulnerable sense of empowering peace.

Then, and only then, can you trust your outward actions and decisions and words.

The most disorienting of peace challenges to my heart are the ones that I can’t seem to explain to myself. “Why is this bothering me so much?” I ask myself. “Why am I obsessing over this?” “What is that reaction about?”

When this happens, there is usually some unconscious, unresolved history that God is trying to work out in me. A big part of my job, then, is to “let it happen” (or better said, “let Him happen”)…to cooperate with the unsettledness of it all and let it take me where it (or He) needs me to go.

Many people I know (me included), whenever they experience some assault on their peace either get too involved (by controlling, throwing fits, or emotionally blackmailing) or get too passive (by not caring, hiding behind judgments, or denial).

But these strategies for finding peace come from the world. They provide a way too cheap alternative to peace that works like a drug, providing temporary relief that will not be able to withstand the weight of future challenges to a truly peaceful heart.

May Jesus leave us the peace that can. His peace.

And then right before I  hit post, this commercial showed up, reminding me that when peace reigns in my heart, the world looks like a totally different place.