Beware of the Peace Robbers
There might be peace robbers in your house right now, and you don’t even know it!
- They disguise themselves as family or friends.
- They can look like fun activities, productive hobbies, good causes, work projects, or serious church service.
- They can look like a piece of furniture (some have plugs attached :-))
- One of their favorite disguises are social media channels – that is usually where I find mine hiding.
Christians can be pretty savvy to the schemes of peace robbers when they come through obvious channels – like bosses with impossible demands or rebellious children. In those cases, a Christian might fight back with prayer and enlist the help of others. This is not a desirable result to the breed of peace robbers that I am talking about. These sneaky, stealthy peace robbers don’t want attention, so they try to disguise themselves in more “harmless” attire – in those activities and people that are otherwise good, pleasurable, interesting, or lovable.
Take a look again at yesterday’s Word of the Week:
Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. Psalm 34:14
Here, and in other scripture, our peace of mind is directly related to our pursuit of holiness, sanctification, righteousness, doing what is right or good…
Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. Hebrews 12:14
Ultimately peace robbers want to distract us – so subtly that when we realize that there is no fruit of peace in our lives, we can’t even figure out why.
As we live our day to day lives, there are many opportunities to choose to do things, even ordinary or good things that we want to do, but which can ultimately rob us of our peace and our close communion with God as they crowd Him out. You see peace robbers rarely work alone. They slip in one by one, and soon enough there isn’t a quiet moment to be found. They even insert themselves into our “quiet times.”
Where to find Peace
Peace is the fruitful result of the active presence of the Holy Spirit of God in our lives. If we follow him, God will lead us on pathways of peace.
The LORD makes firm the steps of the one who delights in him. Psalm 37:23
Seek Peace and Pursue it!
- It takes a certain amount of conviction to resist the lure of all the attractive pursuits of our modern world.
- It takes wisdom to discover where peace robbers are already in residence. Peace robbers may have, at that point, already progressed into worldly attitudes, habits, and beliefs. Yikes!
- It takes courage and commitment to put away lesser loves for the sake of gaining the Kingdom.
Peace is a treasure found in God’s Kingdom and worth more than the treasures of this world.
God and I are on a seek and destroy mission to rout out these insidious thieves. They are numerous and have been around a long time. Some have been found hidden in deeply held attitudes and belief systems, such as perfectionism. Those ones have never lacked for opportunity, let’s just say – particularly since I am not perfect.
This journey is not easy, but it is rewarding.
“I know, Lord, that our lives are not our own.
We are not able to plan our own course.
So correct me, Lord, but please be gentle.“ Jer.10:23,24a
Thank you for openening my mind again to look for peace robbers – there are a lot of them in my life! Love!
God bless you, Thea. We are all on this journey of faith together to discover and receive God’s precious promises and the hope that he offers us. I pray that he will open our eyes to anything that robs our joy and peace so that we can be free to experience all that he has for us. May God give you his peace as you trust in him.