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| Story of my life. ;) |
Lack of Peace
You know, I sure am glad that I've never been stressed before.
Stress. Unrest. Tension. Discord. It all looks so darn uncomfortable and inconvenient. What a hassle! I am so grateful that I've never had to deal with that! My life has just been a bed of roses. Completely peaceful and calm from the day I was born till now. :)
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| Rough break... |
... Oh wait, I do remember once when life wasn't totally peaceful... Once or twice... a month... or week... Ok sorry, I remember now. This is mortal life! No one gets to go through life on a bed of roses. No one gets a free pass labeled "Go Straight Through Mortality Without Any Problems." In fact it probably feels like we're always getting dealt the card "Go Straight to Trial, Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200". Life is rough, it's true, and we often get thrown for a unexpected loop or two along the way.
We've all felt stressed or experienced unrest in our lives. Some of us more than others. Right now in my life there is a certain amount of stress and uncertainty. It frustrates me that I can't find peace very easily right now. I know I'm not alone though. There are billions of people out in the world right now who are searching for peace and can't find it.
What peace are we talking about?
As usual, we need to redefine peace because there are many definitions of peace and we need to get on the same page before we can go much further. Understand that I speak of true, lasting, inner peace. Not just temporary satisfaction or moments of adrenaline. The peace I speak of is not just an absence of war or conflict. Those may be prerequisites to social peace, but for purposes of this article I will be referring specifically to an inner peace, independent of exterior circumstances. There is little or nothing we can do about the choices others make. Good or bad they will make their own decisions as much as we may try to help and influence them. But regardless of what is going on around us we can maintain inner peace.
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| If you have enough money you can buy a bird that makes magical bubbles... Now THAT will bring you peace and happiness. |
Finding Peace
There are thousands of books and theories about gaining that inner peace. The world promotes everything from meditation and seclusion to money and fame as keys behind inner peace and satisfaction. Some people turn to drugs, sex, power, the "worldly" list for how you can find satisfaction out of life goes on and on. Let us then keep in mind what Christ prophesied about this: "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." (John 14:27)
So then we much find peace Christ's way. For He is the way, the truth, and the light. Luckily enough the key which He gives us is beautifully simple.
"Learn of me, and listen to my words; walk in the meekness of my Spirit,
and you shall have peace in me."
Three parts to this finding peace in Christ:
1) Learn of Him
2) Learn His words
3) Walk in the meekness of the Spirit
Those don't honestly seem too hard! Lets dig a little deeper and find some specific things we can do to gain this peace.
Learn of Him
This principle is echoed a few times by Christ, the most powerful of these is found in John 17:3 "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." How do we come to know Christ? We talk to God, tell Him of ourselves and establish that relationship of trust with Him. We learn of Him, reading the things written of Him in the scriptures and things told to us by prophets and apostles called to be "special witnesses" of Jesus Christ, which leads us straight into the second step toward gaining peace.
Learn His Words
In all reality we have precious few of the words actually spoken by Christ Himself during His pre-mortal, mortal, and post-mortal ongoing ministry. These are invaluable and must be studied by any person seeking peace in this life and eternal life in the hereafter.
I wish we had more of Christs ministry to get an even deeper understanding of Him and His sacred mission, but the words we have are relatively very few, especially when compared to the orators of today who have tour after tour, online videos, books and books written by them, filled with their sage wisdom, etc. Now I'm not trying to devalue the sometimes motivating and inspirational speakers of today, nor the vast amount of "self-help" literature available, but I'm trying to shift focus from the modern intellectualism back to Christ as the source of all truth.
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| Prophet Thomas S. Monson |
Remember His words "Whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same." (D&C 1:38) We have to words of modern prophets and apostles to guide us and direct us along the straight and narrow path. Their words are the words of Christ and we should be studying them as well to truly fulfill the mandate to "listen to my words" as Christ has instructed us.
Walk in the Meekness of the Spirit
I suspect that this has been old news so far for most people reading this article. Learning of Christ and hearing His words are perhaps old hat. This third step might be the clincher though. "walk in the meekness of my Spirit." I would interpret that phrase in this way:
Walk- an action, meaning to do or to follow.
Meekness- humility.
So then I might say that phrase this way "Humbly follow the teachings of Christ as directed by the Spirit."
Wow. That might be a bit larger of a step than it looked at first glance. Isn't this the goal though? To follow Christ, humbly, with the direction and guidance of the Spirit? That's certainly my goal. Unfortunately, I, like many of you, fall considerably short of this mark. Sometimes I'm little closer to "pridefully do what I want until the Lord sees fit in His mercy to pile trials on me till I'm humble enough to seek Him and again follow His divine direction." That's sadly a little closer to the mark sometimes.
My uncle said a funny line recently during a discussion at our family reunion. He said something like "I can't stay on the straight and narrow path very long, but I do try and cross it as often as possible." I got a good chuckle out of that, but it's true for many of us. It feels like the second we're back on the path then something happens and we keep slipping back and forth. All I have to say to that is: welcome to mortality!
We must do the very best we can, Christ expects that of us, but He also perfectly understands our mortal and imperfect state. That is why he performed the Atonement. So we could repent and return back to Him. So then "walking in the meekness of the Spirit" becomes us doing our very best, rather than an unrealistic expectation for us to be perfect all the time. Though that is the goal.
The Wonderful Blessing of Peace
God has promised us, and I'm going to take Him at His word, that if we do these three things then we will be granted peace. Few virtues are more rare than true inner peace in this modern deteriorating world in which we live.
"Learn of me, and listen to my words; walk in the meekness of my Spirit,
and you shall have peace in me."
If you are feeling stressed, unease, tension, discord, or any of the other effects of a lack of peace I would invite you to reevaluate how you're fulfilling these three simple steps that God has promised will bring us peace. If you try to improve, God will help you. And you will find the peace you seek.
Keep Pushing On.
Andrew
1 comment:
Thank you for what you said! One interesting insight that a friend shared with me is that we don't need to "find" peace - but that peace is always around us - we just don't understand it. I, too, found insight in D&C 19 on how we can recognize the peace God blesses with us and I loved your interpretation of those verses as well.
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