February 25, 2021 -- Psalm 4:8 -- Peace which no chaos can disrupt

In peace I will both lie down and sleep;

for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.

Psalm 4:8 English Standard Version

Remember when Jesus was in a storm-tossed boat with His frightened disciples? What was He doing? He slept. (Mark 4:35-40). While in prison, the night before his big trial, Peter was sleeping even while he was chained to two guards (Acts12:6). When the beloved child of the Father is where he or she is supposed to be, nothing can shatter the experience of peace.

Christians know there will be trials and persecutions and suffering. Jesus clearly foretold it. The world will hate believers in Jesus because the world hates Jesus Himself, their Master and Teacher (John 15:18). Such trials come to test your faith. Hatred and enmity hurled at you cannot overcome the greater love and peace which pour down on you because you belong to the King of kings and LORD of lords. The world can take every single thing we own—but one thing it can never take from us— our strong and unshakeable faith in Jesus Christ.

When Jesus suffered, He experienced agony, pain beyond description and grief—but Hebrews noted: “who for the joy set before Him endured the cross despising its shame” 12:2). What was the joy set before Him? It was pleasing His Father in heaven. It was the steadfast assurance of Psalm 1 that the LORD watches over the way of the righteous. It was the joy that Father has the full weight of eternity in His hand with which to bless His people. Jesus knew His suffering, greater though it was than what any person in all of history ever has or ever will suffer, would bring many sons and daughters into the knowledge of the safety of belonging to God.

O God of our Righteousness, You are blessed and true. This day we confess all the things that trouble the waters of our peacefulness—things like our agitation at what other Christians are doing. To our greater shame before Your throne we confess we get angry so that instead of praying for them and encouraging them we tear and bite at them. We confess we hear the voices of mocking—from friends, our own inner thought life and enemies alike—and allow ourselves to be weighed down. Lift up the light of Your face on us, O LORD, that we may be, by Your Word and Spirit, restored to the peace which has been so richly given in Jesus Christ. Help us now, more than ever in these chaotic Covid times, to live as Christians who love one another truly and richly in Christ and who seek to press in ever closer to Jesus in Whom we find our great unity. Amen.

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