peace | Elaine Olsen

“‘I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.’” (John 15:5-8).

Rest. Renewal. Remaining in relationship.

We all need it. We all crave it, but rarely do we ever take the necessary steps to receive it. If not guarded and carefully tended to, our soul’s can crack with the dry and withered weary from our well-intentioned doing.

I’m there, friends. And my necessary and much needed portion requires that I step away from the computer in intentional pause to find some…

peace…

for my journey.

What good would I be to God or to you if I didn’t heed the urging that he’s been scripting into my soul for over two weeks now? What hypocrisy would be lived in me if I urged you toward peace in your journey but refused the steps to find my own?

I want my talk to match my walk, and so for the next week or so, I will be selectively guarding my time and tending to my “remaining” and my “attachment” to the Vine. It’s not that I don’t want to be here with you; it’s simply and profoundly because my desire to be with Him is greater. Some days, those desires coincide and weave together in beautiful measure. These are times of wonderful fruit bearing; but when the fruit bears less, it’s time to step back.

To re-evaluate and to refresh.

Seven months ago, I began this blogging journey; I couldn’t have imagined then what it would birth inside of me. The growth I have known on a personal level has yielded an orchard! It’s been fun to watch, and even greater to write. From its earliest inception, Peace for the Journey, has always breathed with the intention of allowing readers to pause from the ordinary and to partake of the Extraordinary—a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Jesus is our Peace, and the only way we will ever walk in his peace, is to tend to our souls. Keeping our lives on the journey toward peace means keeping to Jesus. The easiest way that I have found to do this, is to be in his Word. Daily. Learning and striving to implement his Word at a deeper level that roots rather than blows away with the first sign of conflict and confusion.

I’ll be honest. It would be easier to write about other things on this blog. I could rant and rave about a great many things (from the mundane to the complex), but one more voice simply adds to the noise, and quite frankly, nothing from my kitchen or my chaotic life would warrant your need to take notes. The world is noisy enough, and my life is simply not that exciting. Writing about it would put me to sleep.

It would be easier…require less of me…but friends, I’ve spent the better part of my 42 years walking my easy and my less. I am no longer content to do so. Does it make me popular in blog land? Perhaps not. But blog land is not my end. Jesus is, and I am done making apologies for my trying to lead you toward his end.

Thus, when I return, you can expect more of the same. My focus will not change. My parameters—my boundaries for doing this thing called “blogging”—have to change. It’s become too important to me, and it has consumed far too much of my time. That being said, I will be back. As my dear friend, Judith told me the other day on the phone…

Elaine, you write to live! I celebrate that God-given gift and will continue to honor it via my words for as long as my Father allows me the pen.

I want to personally take a moment to thank my friends who have taken some time this week to speak words of life over my weary spirit. Lisa, Judith, Joy, and Pastor Guillermo (aka: “preacher Billy”; further aka: “my man”) you have been the breath of Jesus to me, and I am forever grateful for being able to share my journey with people who aren’t afraid to reach beyond blogging and to get their hands “dirty” with the likes of me. God bless you each with a rich sense of purpose as you continue to minister to others on the journey. He’s allowed you some fruit bearing upon the soil of my heart this week.

One final thought, readers (I feel like a mother getting ready for a vacation—leaving you a “checklist” in my absence)…

Never fear tending to your soul. Never worry about what might be required of you. Your temporary sacrifice is worth the forever gain that comes with seeking Jesus. Don’t be afraid to step away from the table and to get down to the business of your heart. God’s never been after your performance. He’s after your personal.

Your rest. Your renewal. Your remaining in relationship with Him. All of which can be cultivated and found as we pause to embrace his Peace…

for the journey. Yours and mine.

I will see you soon. In the meantime, for those of you who are willing, I would appreciate your prayers on my behalf as I seek my Father’s face and his intentions for my “next.” As always…

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“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.” (John 14:27).

Can I ask you a question or two? Would you be willing to entreat the thoughts that have been walking around my heart recently? I hope so, but if you are in a rush and life is screaming around your heart with the speed of light, I’ll understand your taking a pass. But in doing so, I think you will neglect a pondering that is, perhaps, most intended for you, for we are a weary and busy people. And God would like to offer you something of lasting worth that will not only help you in your weary, but will walk with you for always.

His peace.

How long has it been since you have tasted the full and deep measure of God’s peace? And more importantly, do you even begin to comprehend the difference between this world’s packaging of peace and the Father’s gifting of peace? What does it mean to you that the God of all creation gives in accordance to his “Godness” and not according to a temporal standard that, at best, is momentary and shallow?

The contrast is staggering. If would could ever get our minds around the disparity between the two, we would quickly trade in our purchasing of the world’s peace for the receiving of God’s eternal peace. His cannot be bought. It can only be received as a gift. This is a difficult concept for most of us, for we have spent a lifetime negotiating the purchase price for peace.

We take vacations in search of peace, only to return with frazzled nerves and a mounting credit card. We turn on the television as a way of escaping the pressures of the current, only to be bombarded with the harsh assaults by an industry that thrives on chaos and conflict. We labor our cause for peace through political points of view, only to walk away with a growing dislike for our contemporaries who don’t view the world through similar lenses.

We take to our self-soothing through…

alcohol
drugs…prescribed and otherwise
food
sleep
shopping
internet and email
movies
music
sexual addictions…and the entertaining of thoughts therein
exercise

…all manner of creature comforts that, perhaps, breathe an initial breath of peace but in the end leave us void of any deep and lasting portion.

We want peace for our journeys, but somewhere along the road, we have bought into the lie that peace can be purchased. It is a good lie because it’s working on most of us. But peace that comes with a price tag is simply a masking for the enemy’s offering of bondage. Satan’s objective is to keep us searching…to keep us in a perpetual stage of running toward a goal that he knows can never be achieved through our good intentions or a bulging bank account. Satan’s offer of peace serves on the same platter as it did for the disciples over 2000 years ago.

The world’s promise of peace may have walked differently back then, but it still measured the same.

Worldly and lacking.

But then Jesus interrupted the scene with an alternative—an offering of his own portion of peace. It was a peace that extended far beyond the customary greeting and conversational benediction of their vernacular. It was a “penetrating through the doors” kind of peace that poured deep with an extended reach toward their forever.

When Jesus told his followers about his soon and coming departure, undoubtedly their hearts were a flurry with confusion and grief. It is the same for us. Anytime we perceive our Jesus to be absent from our “routine and normal” we, too, are prone to our flurry and our worry until we can no longer find the thread of peace that links us back to our faith. It may only be momentary, but unless our peace is anchored within the truth of Jesus’ offering of peace, our lingering chaos lasts long and hard and keeps us from experiencing the immediate intention of a Father’s gift.

The disciples were at a distinct disadvantage, although we often think of them as more blessed for having walked and talked with Jesus and for being the front row witnesses of his miraculous. No, in that moment of hearing Jesus’ forecast concerning his future, their troubled hearts didn’t have the benefit of the one thing that we now possess.

Hindsight. A backward glance into sacred history as we now know it. We see Jesus’ cycle of life and understand the reasons for his cross. We are the benefactors of such a gift. But when Christ spoke to the disciples concerning his death and his resurrection, their momentary pain kept them shackled to the cross…to their chaos and confusion…instead of pushing them ahead to vision the promise of their forever.

It was a moment worthy of the spoken word and the spoken Presence of that word.

Peace. Not as the world gives, but as the Father gives.

And even though we have the documented benefit of history, even though we’ve seen the working out of Calvary’s pouring grace and an Easter’s crowning resurrection and a Pentecost’s promised revival, even though we know it all to be true in the deepest marrow of our being, we still live as a people in search of God’s peace.

I’ve got some good news for you today. The search is over. God’s peace is here. His name is Jesus, and he lives in each one of us through the witness and power of his Holy Spirit. Love’s redeeming work was done over 2000 years ago, and the overflow from that sacred grace is a lasting peace. Never to be purchased. Never to be contrived or managed or fit into a busy schedule as needed, but rather to simply be received and to be lived. To be understood and to be treasured.

You need not go to the market in search for the seemingly unattainable. If you know Jesus to be your Savior, then you contain within you the absolute attainable. Not because you are deserving, but simply because you are the penchant of your Father’s heart, and his lasting and enduring peace is the sacred root that will grow you toward your forever.

Our Father does not give to us as the world gives. He gives better. More than the eye can see. More than the ear can hear. More than the mind can conceive. And sometimes, more than our faith can believe. God’s immeasurably more will always trump the seen and the measurable. The gifts from our Father’s hands are the seeding of our tomorrow. He gives with the future in mind. He gives gifts that have eternal reach because eternity is his to give, and Peace is ours to live.

Not just when life breathes good, but when life breathes heavy and threatens our very existence. Peace is our very good portion. Our constant and our abiding gift from heaven until we reach the shores of our forever and see our Peace, face to face.

Who can fathom the glorious riches of our then…of our now?! I can, and thus I pray,

Jesus, you are my Peace. Keep me to the road of Peace. Harbor my thoughts in the depth of your constant and abiding Peace who lives within. When I am tempted to search elsewhere…to pull out the wallet and to purchase peace at the going rate…drop me to my knees in thankfulness for the price that has already been paid on my behalf for your gift of lasting peace. Walk through the door of my heart, Lord, each and every day and speak your words of Peace over my life. Give according to your “Godness” and not according to my want, for my want will always fall short of your immeasurably more. And you my Father, have made me for more; thus, I bow to receive my portion from your hand his day. Amen.

~elaine

For a more in-depth look at God’s concept of peace, please take time to read John 14. May God bless the reading and the pondering of his word as only he can. Shalom!

Category Archives: peace

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