My truck sucks. I don’t mean it in a derogatory “it’s a peace of trash” kind of way. I mean it like a friend, playfully batting around a joking brash of a verbal noogy. I used to think of my truck as a female. Not just because it’s temperamental (just kidding women), but because that’s the manly thing to do. Pilots would name their planes after their woman interest back home, almost creating these women to be mythical creatures that every enlisted man dreamt of. Not so with my truck. My truck is definitely a guy. My truck is a close friend whose favorite thing to do is to play practical jokes on ME. It’s like a constant game of playing bloody knuckles…or a playful battle of dead leg. I fix it. It works wonderfully. Then the transmission goes out. I get that fixed. Then the stinking door handle breaks, at the same time as needing an oil change, and new tires. My truck is a punk. Very rarely is there peace between me and my truck.
Peace:
a state of tranquillity or quiet
David (a guy who watched sheep until he was made into a king) once wrote,
“God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging.
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy place where the Most High dwells.
God is within her, she will not fall;
God will help her at break of day.
Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
he lifts his voice, the earth melts.”
As a king, David was always in war. Chaos happened most of David’s life. But David found peace, in the all sufficiency of God. That though the earth was falling apart at it’s hinges, David new that the Creator of the Universe was ever-present in every situation. And no matter what happened David knew that though his trials sucked, God liked him, and He would never forget David. Very rarely would there be peace in David’s world, but he found peace regardless in the sanctuary of his heart. In the same sitting David wrote:
[God speaking]
“Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.”
The Peace of God, I believe, is “the agreeable,” and all I know is that the peace that God gives has as much of a habit of sneaking up on me as the tragedy of life. That though everything in my world might be opposing me, I’m not too worried…and that sort of surprises me. I don’t think that it would be that way if I weren’t friends with the Giver of peace. I’m surprised by peace…everyday. I don’t need to fret too terribly much because there isn’t one thing that God cannot only get me through, but He can also use it to make me stronger in the end. I can’t really explain it. But maybe that’s why it’s the peace that “surpasses all understanding.”