Peace

Matthew 5:9

Dear God,

I want to be an agent of grace and peace.  Conflict swirls around me.  Sometimes, I create conflict.  Sometimes, I am its victim.  Peace is not simply the absence of conflict and trouble.  Peace has a positive quality.  Peace is the presence and enjoyment of good.  I confess that I sometimes focus on people as the problem, thinking that if they were only removed from the situation, the troubled might know peace.  But peace is not simply the removal of the negative.  Something must fill the void, replace the absent, and satisfy the vacuum.  Peace.

Help me to be an agent of peace.  It is so hard for me to know when to wait and when to act.  Peace-making requires Your wisdom to obey Your timing.  Sometimes, I confuse peace-loving for peace-making.  Peace-loving will tempt me to ignore festering problems, hoping that they will go away.  Peace-making will address issues.  That can be very hard.

But peace-making is Your work!  You want me to be about this task!  Peace-making is a God-like virtue.  You are the Author of peace, and You are the Peace-Maker!  Thank You for the peace You have brought to my heart.  Empower me to be an agent of peace in my marriage, my family, my home, my church, my workplace, my neighborhood, and my community.

Thank You for restoring right relationship with me.  Thank You for Your peace between us.

My God is reconciled.  His pardoning voice I hear.  
He owns me for His child.  I can no longer fear.
With confidence I now draw nigh.  With confidence I now draw nigh.  
And “Father, Abba, Father” cry!  
(Charles Wesley, Arise, My Soul, Arise)

I want to model Your kind of peace-making in my world.  For me to experience authentic peace with You, I had to humble my conquered heart and admit that I was wrong.  You patiently convicted me and drew me to that place.  Help me to be patient with others who have never humbled themselves to experience Your peace in their hearts.  Help me to be patient with other believers whose pride seems to oppose Your peace.

“O the bliss of those who produce right relationships between man and man, for they are doing a Godlike work” (William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, vol. I, p. 106).

In the Name o f the Prince of Peace,
Amen.