PEACE!

I have to admit that I was deeply upset by the divisive speech that our President made last week, prior to the national celebration of Labor Day, here in the United States.  It bothered me, not only because it was very hostile and unsettling to at least half the population of our country… but also because the majority of it was blatantly false!

But I think the real reason that I reacted the way I did, is because it caused me to relive many painful memories of similar false reporting, anger and discord that was pointed directly at me in the early and most difficult days of my wife’s debilitating and eventually fatal illness.  The Lord though is good and used my sensitivity to the event as another opportunity to teach me a lesson or two.

Like He always does… He immediately brought me back to His Word and reminded me of Paul’s instruction to the Galatian church where he taught them about the fruit of the Spirit declaring,

“But the fruit produced by the Holy Spirit within you is divine love in all its varied expressions: joy that overflows, PEACE that subdues, patience that endures, kindness in action, a life full of virtue, faith that prevails, gentleness of heart, and Self-Control. Never set the law above these qualities, for they are meant to be limitless.” (Galatians 5:22-23 TPT-God’s Word ©)

The fruit of the Spirit of PEACE is defined in the original Greek usage as “quietness, rest, harmony, peace between individuals, concord and felicity, because peace and harmony make and keep things safe and prosperous.”*  With my wife’s and my musical background and church involvement in leading praise and worship services, I found myself automatically drawn to the idea and importance of harmony.

I had been the lead singer in a rock band during my days in junior and senior high, but had never sung harmony.  In fact, I didn’t know too much about it until I met my wife-to-be in high school.  Her family occasionally sang specials at their church and Piper was the designated alto, and thereby sang the harmony line to the songs they performed. 

By the time I came around she had a good understanding of harmonies and was quite adapt in singing them with just about any song.  When she and I sang our first special together at her church, when we were attending the local community college, she and her mom taught me a harmony to the song… and if I don’t say so myself… we sounded pretty sweet together… although it took me awhile to be able to hear and then sing at a different pitch than she was singing… and when I missed my notes… it definitely created a noticeable dissonance and jarring to the beauty of the music and lyrics.

Now, if one was to employ the same idea and terminology to a relationship, marriage and family and then fast forward… say about 36 years, Piper and I could accurately say that we had developed a strong and well-pleasing song of melodious harmony between us.  But that harmony was threatened with jarring dissonance from outside sources when she was officially diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

And even though the circumstances and characters were totally different, the methods used were identical to the tactics that I heard presented through the President in his recent national speech.  Dissonance is defined by the Oxford Online Dictionaries as “a tension or clash resulting from the combination of two disharmonies or unsuitable elements.”  Dictionary.com says that it produces “inharmonious or harsh sounds, discord and cacophony” which is defined as “a discordant and meaningless mixture of sounds.”

In other words, it is a jumble of information… whether true or false – as it really doesn’t matter -  because it is solely meant to produce discord, anger, fear, disharmony and many times incite physical altercations and or destruction.  It is also meant to turn the eyes of those involved away from the answers in God’s Word and have them focus instead on the hopelessness inherent to the turmoil that is being stirred up.

But just like it did for us back then and is still doing today, the power of God’s PEACE can and will override, silence and then replace the jarring dissidence with a “harmony in life that brings PEACE and felicity to make and keep things safe and prosperous.”  A beautiful and melodious harmony that is totally independent from the circumstances of life and the harsh noises that accompanies them.

Wuest’s Word Studies tells us that the fruit of the Spirit of Godly PEACE is the uniquely special “PEACE in our hearts that is defined as tranquility of mind based on the conciseness of a right relation to God.” It is an “inside” of the heart fruit of the Spirit that directly affects and influences the mind of men and women and their physical responses to the circumstances of life.

I wasn’t fully aware of how much the negative effects that the disharmony and dissidence, during the years between 2009 and when we moved away to North Carolina in the summer of 2014, had affected Piper and I until one warm day in the spring of the following year, when I pulled the Mustang out of our apartment garage and parked next to a nearby rose garden in order to put the top down on the car.  As I walked around the car to help Piper to get her hat on, I was suddenly over-whelmed with the sense of PEACE that I felt at the beauty of the day and how sweet and beautiful Piper looked (despite her crippled appearance) against the backdrop of the car’s red leather seats and the swarm of red roses next to her!  In that moment of time, I noticed how quiet it was… not only in the little commons area park at the apartments but inside of me!  The jarring was gone and the peace of God was flooding our souls.

So, while outside sourcing are once again attempting to blow the trumpets of discord, disharmony and dissidence within our great country… I now know that we, YES!  YOU and I have the answer to protect ourselves and our loved ones… and at the same time, silence the jarring noises whose purpose is to divide us and distract us from God’s Word which contains His answers for our country!

If you’re anything like me… then you are going to cultivate the fruit of God’s Spirit of PEACE in you, and then let that PEACE fill you and then work THROUGH you to positively effect a hurting and confused nation!

 

*Strong’s and Thayer’s