So here I am, getting ready to type up my hundredth blog post.  I've thought about this for a few days, trying to decide what to write on.  After all, one hundred posts seems to be quite the milestone ... at least to me it does.  Maybe it feels like a big deal because I've never been that good at sticking with anything.  Who knows ... guess I'll get to writing now.

"And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
Philippians 4:7, New International Version

If there is one thing in life I desire it's to know the peace of God.  I believe I've experienced his grace and mercy.  I understand what it feels like to know his love.  For some reason though his peace seems to have eluded me.  I'm not sure why ... I guess the easiest explanation would be to blame myself.  I'm sure there's something I've done along the way that has caused God to withhold it from me.  I'm sure there is some reasonable explanation as to why I don't deserve to live a God-peaceful life.  Maybe I lied too much as a kid.  Maybe I ran with the wrong crowd, and picked on the unpopular kids too much.  Maybe I screwed up too much as an adult, and made too many mistakes.  I know you can't outrun God's forgiveness ... that's promised to us.  But is God's peace promised?

This so called peace is supposed to transcend all understanding.  I guess I have a hard time even understanding that statement.  This is what I do understand though ...

I understand the feeling of frequent disappointment.
I understand what it means to put your hope into something or someone only to get let down.
I understand the pain of loving someone only to receive no love in return.
I understand wanting to do the right thing but not really knowing what 'right' is anymore.
I understand pain.
I understand despair.
I understand hopelessness.

These are all things that I understand ... I understand them because I've lived with them, spent time with them, and unfortunately, grown to know them quite well.  I guess you could say that all of these feelings and emotions have transcended any feeling of peace I've ever known.  They must have, because I feel as if I could write a textbook definition of these things clear enough for anyone to understand, yet I have no idea how to define God's peace.

Is peace a blissful, happy place we store in our minds for quick reference?  Is it falling asleep without a heavy heart?  Is it waking up with hope, and an optimistic outlook for the new day God has given us?  Is it having the ability to focus on the important things in life and letting the rest go by the wayside?  Is it feeling like everything is going right?  I don't know.  I don't know what it's like to lay my head down and night and just fall asleep.  I usually have to stay up until I'm mentally or emotionally exhausted.  I don't get physically exhausted anymore, so I have to resort to other means.  I'm not sure when I last woke up feeling hopeful.  I'm sure I have at some point recently ... hope always precedes a let down.  I just don't really know the feeling of waking up two days in a row feeling that way.  And as for focusing ... well ... that's never really been a strength of mine.  I've always been good at starting things ... I've never really been a finisher.  Maybe peace comes with being cynical.  Maybe it's located somewhere near the intersection of cynicism and self-centeredness.  My most difficult times in life were always associated with how I reacted to the actions of others.  Other people were responsible for my most non-peaceful times, so ... if I become cynical, and only care about myself ... maybe I'll avoid the let downs ... maybe I'll find peace.  I'm not sure I'm buying that.

So the last part of the verse is where it really hits home.  The peace that Paul speaks of is supposed to guard our hearts and our minds.  Really?  My heart and mind are nothing more than battlegrounds where I meet satan on a daily basis.  The first battle typically starts about 60-90 seconds after I wake up.  The last one ends about a second or two before I fall asleep at night.  Between the two I don't experience much peace, so if it's supposed to be guarding my heart and my mind, it's not doing that great of a job.  Maybe the peace keeper assigned to me has a habit of calling in sick.  It's not like I haven't invited it to hang out with me, or to 'rest' upon me ... I've prayed for God's peace to flood my life, and to take over, and to do all sorts of spiritual sounding things countless times.  I just feel like that's one prayer that seems to go unanswered.  Why?

I think the natural thing for a Christian to do is to assume that pain + lack of peace + struggles = learning a lesson.  It's easy to use that equation to deduce that "obviously I'm going through this because God wants me to learn something."  I think that's what we're taught by well meaning pastor's during Sunday services, but in my opinion that's a bunch of crap ... pardon me.  That's a lot milder than what was actually going through my mind.  That's not to say that God doesn't use bad experiences to teach us things, but I just can't buy the fact that one of his most common tools for disciplining us and teaching us is continual misery.  That's not the God I know.

There's a hokey Christian bumper sticker that says the following:

No God.  No Peace.  Know God.  Know Peace.

I say it's hokey because it simplifies something that I don't think is that simple.  After all, I know God.  I understand his nature.  His spirit lives within me.  I read his word, I talk to him daily.  I listen to songs about him ... God isn't a stranger to me.  I don't think this abstract concept of God's peace can be trivialized into a saying on a bumper sticker.  And quite honestly, I think there are a lot of people running around the world that have no relationship with God at all who are living more peaceful lives than most Christ followers.  I'm sorry ... ignorance bothers me.

So I've been flying this plane for awhile now and can't seem to find the runway.  Usually by the time I've written this much I've felt God instructing me on how to "land it."  I'm not feeling it this morning.  Maybe this is another "Part One".  If it is that would make sense.  I guess I really didn't feel like I'd solve the mystery of God's peace in six or seven paragraphs.  I'm not sure what it will take to solve it ... but this is one thing I aim to finish.  God bless you.