PASSAGE FOR THE DAY:
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life,
what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life
more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or
store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much
more valuable than they? 27 Can
any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
28 “And why
do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not
labor or spin. 29 Yet I
tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of
these. 30 If that is how
God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown
into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What
shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all
these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and
his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about
tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of
its own.” (Matthew 6:25-34, NIV)
…………
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident
to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do
not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and
petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which
transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in
Christ Jesus.
8 Finally,
brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right,
whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is
excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or
seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with
you. (Philippians 4:4-9, NIV)
REFLECTIONS:
On these last few days of Advent, we’ll focus our attention
on the gift of peace that comes to us when we embrace the coming of Christ.
Holman’s Bible Dictionary defines peace as a “sense of
well-being and fulfillment that comes from God and is dependent on His
presence.”
A sense of well-being and fulfillment from God means, at
least in part, that we embrace all the elements of our existence as
God-ordained. That is, we are at rest in God’s sovereign rule and assured of his
faithful care.
This peace, which we embrace by faith, was absolute reality
for Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Before eating of the fruit, they didn’t
have to worry about what was good or evil—they trusted God exclusively for
what was good and best for them.
Similarly, infants trust their parents implicitly. When they
get hungry or need a diaper changed, they cry, signaling to their parents that
they need them. When their parents pick them up, they don’t worry about whether
or not they will be dropped. As children grow, though, they begin to exert
their independence and rebel against their parents. Even a toddler can regard
parental instruction as mere suggestion. She can weigh the options and do the
opposite of what her parent wants, even though the parent knows what is best
for her.
We have never fully experienced the complete trust in God
that Adam and Eve had. Consequently, we have never had the accompanying peace.
Our broken and decaying world is only part of our reality. Dallas Willard
comments, “the entire posture of our embodied self and its surroundings is
habitually inclined toward physical or earthly reality as the only reality
there is,” which is why we are inclined to trust and hope in what is seen.
Jesus warns us along these lines: “Therefore I tell you, do
not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body,
what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?”
(Matthew 6:25). If we seek fulfillment in temporal things like security,
appearance and money, then our fate is fixed. We will be anxious. This is why
Paul said that the peace of God transcends all understanding. It simply isn’t
how the world thinks, precisely because the world can’t see it.
The Advent season summons us to hope in what is unseen, the
unlikely birth of a Savior and the return of our King. When our trust is in the
God-reality that is beyond any risk of threat, anxiety is pointless. “It occurs,”
Willard says, “only as a hangover of bad habits established when we were
trusting things—like human approval and material possessions—that were certain
to let us down. Now our strategy should be one of resolute rejection of worry,
while we concentrate on the future in hope and with prayer and on the past with
thanksgiving.”
Peace is dependent on God’s presence as a good and caring
Father because there simply isn’t any other source of peace. The Law and the
Prophets bear witness to this truth, which is why they looked to God to set
things right in our world, to restore the peace of Eden. The ultimate prayer
for peace is, “Come, Lord Jesus, Come.”
POINT TO PONDER AND PRAYER:
What are my anxious thoughts? What temporal things am I
trusting in that underlie these thoughts? Will I trust God as my Father in
these areas?
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your
kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us
today what we need for today, and we will trust that tomorrow will be the same.
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