Peace in the World Begins With Peace in Our Hearts

 "They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; One nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again. O house of Jacob come, let us walk in the light of the Lord."
Isaiah 2:5

It would be awesome to experience the day when all of the world would walk together in the light of the Lord. Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhist, Hindus; people from every nationality, East to West and North to South; people of every persuasion, of every custom, of every belief; all joining hands in love and peace as the unalienable children of God.

Imagine, as Isaiah says, nations never again raising their swords (or in modern terms, their AK-47s or nuclear bombs) against one another. Imagine your sons and daughters never having to “train for war again.” No more World Wars and no more wars between individual nations. No more wars within nations and no more wars within families. Imagine perfect peace; heaven on earth.

If we are ever to experience this type of bliss, it has to begin with conversion; and that conversion must first begin in each of our hearts. Let’s face it. There will never be peace in this world until we have peace within our nation, our individual communities and our families. This means that peace must first begin within each and every one of us.

If I am not at peace with myself, how can I be at peace with my neighbor? I can’t be. It’s impossible. Peace has to truly begin with me. This means that I must work on loving, accepting and forgiving myself. Once I can empathize with me, I can empathize with others. Once I befriend my own brokenness, I can befriend the brokenness of family members, friends, neighbors, co-workers, etc. Peace begins within me and it spreads across my world; uniting with the peace that others have attained in their own hearts. Imagine people learning to listen better to each other. Picture people learning to agree to disagree about things they can’t see eye to eye on, and in doing so, envision them as they come to see and respect the image and likeness of God that each of them projects to the world.

This may seem Utopian. It isn’t an easy solution. Dropping bombs is an easy solution, but it is never a holy one. And we need a holy solution. Peace within me spreading to the world around me is a holy beginning. We may never see the full dividends that come from our efforts, but we will have encouraged God-graced conversion of hearts; new ways of thinking and acting toward each other. And one day, amidst future generations, our efforts may pay off in nations never training again for war; in the entire world walking together, hand in hand, in the light of the Lord; in universal love.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

No One Can Calm Your Codependent Crazies, But You

Image
Ah, the codependent crazies. Those needy, needy feelings. I remember well the deep emotional pain in the pit of my stomach: The throbbing sting of shame, fear, loneliness and anxious desperation. Those feelings that are like fingernails on the blackboard of your soul. They eat you alive from within as they dig deeper and deeper into the black hole of your inner-emptiness. Yes, I remember them well. And I remember evenings of mental and emotional insanity-- squirming with a magazine, pacing back and forth, indulging in chocolate, chasing up and down the stairs hoping the doorbell would ring, and staring endlessly at the telephone for a sign of hope. All I needed was a call from my false higher power; a call that would help me to know that I was OK, that I was needed, that I was worth thinking about in some good way. I was dying to be emotionally caressed on the head like a poodle desperate for the attention of his master. And certainly I had made that other person into my mas...
Read more

Happiness is Something We Cultivate and Share

Who makes you happy? In reality, no one can make you happy. People in your life can enhance your happiness through sharing your interests. Or they can add to your frustrations by pushing your buttons. But no one can be responsible for your happiness or your misery—aside from you. One of the biggest problems for codependents is that we too often enter relationships looking for everlasting happiness. We expect that the person we choose to attach our dreams to should be responsible for making us happy. In our minds, we fantasize that he/she will be focused solely on us, will spend every waking hour with us and will do everything in his/her power to insure that we are as happy as we can possibly be. In other words, we assume this person will meet all of our mental, emotional, physical and spiritual needs in the same way that we plan to meet all of his/her needs. In our little dream world we will smother each other with attention and we will both drip with the honey of happiness. R...
Read more

Where There Is Kindness, There Is Goodness

Image
Author’s Note: The next few meditations will be from a retreat I directed recently called The Good News According to Disney . If you aren’t familiar with the films that are referenced, I’d suggest to take time to see them and to look for the deeper meaning within them. Many people today still live by the biblical adage “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” They actually believe that they will be at peace if they achieve revenge or restitution for any mishap that has befallen them at the hands of another. They believe they will reclaim their personal power once they have achieved their revenge, but this is impossible. Disney’s Cinderella (2015) reveals the true secret to owning one’s personal power and to retaining it no matter what we experience in life: “Have courage and be kind.” On the surface this motto looks a bit simple and wimpy. But in reality, it holds great power. That power comes from the heart of a person, or in this case Ella, who sees the world not a...
Read more

Become the Person You Want to Spend Your Life With Everyday

Image
I really don’t have to say much about the above quote. It says it all and it’s so true. We are too often taught faulty ways of thinking as children. So many of us get the wrong message at very young ages: Love is about finding the right person to love you. Looking back I realize I wasted many years trying to find that “right” person— the one who could love me into loving myself— instead of trying to BE that “right” person myself. It never occurred to me that I needed to love myself, nurture myself and accept myself enough to become the right person— the person I really needed most in my life. After all, what is my life without me? Now I know that I’m what’s been missing from my own life for years. My life is empty without me and without my spiritual Higher Power. This is true for all of us.  Once We find ourselves, become the “right” person God intended us to be, and become the person we want to spend the rest of our lives with, then we attract others into our lives who ca...
Read more