Blessed are the peacemakers,
For they will be called sons of God.
Matthew 5:9
Peace is something we all long
for. From the ancient greeting of Shalom that Jews share with one another,
to the sixties when the hippies sat around with two fingers raised in a “v”
murmuring peace. We want to live where
there is no friction or tension. We
don’t want to be involved in war where people die. We want to live in harmony with those around
us. It’s how God created us to be. We can look forward to peace in Heaven, but
for now we have to deal with discord here on earth.
The word is
quiet simple and straight forward, much easier said than done. Jesus asks His followers to be peacemakers or
makers of peace. There is no clause
releasing me from actively working towards peace if I wasn’t the person who
caused the discord. It didn’t matter to Jesus;
He wants us to be people who are bringing about wholeness in the world.
It’s not
easy. I can’t even think about bringing
peace to far off places where wrongs are being done and nations are at war when
I am full of unrest about the relationships in my own life. Simple misunderstandings between family
members or a neglected courtesy between friends can cause years of hurt and tension
in relationships.
The Greek
root of the word peacemakers is eiro, which means, “to join or bind together
that which has been separated.” Just the
definition tells me that once there was a good relationship, but now there’s
not. It takes work to restore what was
broken. I can’t expect peace to happen
when I am sitting on my couch thinking about it. Talking to others about the situation often
simply turns into gossip and rarely moves restoration forward. Peace takes forgiveness and love. It means I have to put the other person before
myself and risk being hurt once again in the process of restoring peace.
Sometimes a
broken relationship is one sided. I’ve
been hurt and the other person doesn’t even realize it. Most of the times these are petty infractions
that fester inside of me bringing me to a point where I can’t even face my
friend without anger and barriers. I’ve
learned that these situations usually have more to do with me and God than with
the other person. I’ve also learned that
because this has more to do with me, that to bring it up to the other person is
often disastrous. So sometimes being a
peacemaker is wrestling through issues with God and leaving people out of
it.
What about
the broken relationship where we have done everything possible to forgive and
move forward but the other person continues to hurt us? I think God asks us to live in the tension of
continual forgiveness but also being willing to step away from the relationship
until the time for healthy restoration comes.
An
interesting thing about the blessing is that a peacemaker will be called a son
of God. If I’m saved, I’m a son of
God. So this tells me that I can’t
separate working towards peace in all situations from being a Christian. They go hand in hand, we can’t choose to
ignore difficulty in relationships if we want to follow God.
What relationships do you need to actively
work towards restoring?
Who has wronged you that God is
asking you to pray for and forgive?
What is stopping you from taking the
first step towards restoration?
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