“Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.”
Every one of us can make a contribution to world peace. Because of the bonds that tie all the members of the human race together, any time we are at peace interiorly, we take the whole human family another step toward world peace.
By our efforts we can establish peace in our homes and families, among relatives and in-laws, in our place of work, in our parishes and church communities, and in our immediate neighborhoods. However, we must first attain peace in our own minds, hearts, and souls. Only to the extent that we are at peace within ourselves do we create an aurora or circle of peace around us.
Whoever comes into contact with a peaceful person is bound to be affected by the peace felt in that person’s presence. Furthermore, our peaceful countenance, deportment, and attitude will have a ripple effect which will extend outward until the whole world is embraced in peace.
There are different areas in which we can work to achieve inner peace:
(1) Acceptance of God’s reign over our lives is the ratification of a covenant of peace with God.
(2) Discovering and accepting our particular destiny and place in the world and in society can bring us inner peace.
(3) Our actions, deeds, thoughts, words, and desires must be in harmony so that there is peace between our inner conscience and our external conduct.
(4) We need to be at peace with both past and future, which would mean being neither unduly concerned nor constantly worrying but accepting of God’s power in our life.
(5) We need to do all we can to be at peace with all those with whom we come in contact, those with whom we live, work, and associate.
(6) We must come to reconciliation and peace with the hurts and injuries of the past and with those whom we may have injured, albeit unwittingly or unknowingly.
Our Covenant of Peace with God
To enter into a covenant of peace with God we must convince ourselves that God is our friend and has our best interests at heart.
According to the Third Chapter of Genesis, peace departed from mankind’s history when Adam and Eve became convinced that God was not their friend because God denied them certain things. The basis of the temptation which Satan suggested to Eve was that God was unwilling to share all of God’s knowledge and thus was depriving them of something good.
When we commit a deliberate sin, we are repeating this situation. We do not deliberately go against God’s will until we convince ourselves that God does not have our best interests at heart and is depriving us of something that is good for us. Thus when we sin, we lay claim to having a better knowledge than God of what is good and best. When we lack faith and confidence in God’s goodness, wisdom, and loving care for us, we are forced to depend upon our own judgments or the judgment of some other fallible human being.
No matter how much we try to convince ourselves otherwise, down deep in our hearts we know that “no human being is entirely dependable,” and that no matter how good something seems, we can be mistaken. This insecurity in turn causes a deep restlessness and uneasiness within us and is quite the opposite of true peace.
Therefore, the straightest path to true peace is a tremendous faith and confidence in the goodness of God, the love of God, the power of God, the wisdom of God, and the promises of God.
Once we are convinced that God knows what is best for us, that God has the power to bring about what is right and best for us, that God is all-good and therefore cannot want anything except what is for our benefit, and that God loves us with an infinite, everlasting love, then we can go to bed each night and sleep in peace.
Consequently we can accept frustration when things fail to turn out the way we had hoped or wanted. We submit humbly to the higher wisdom of God when God wills a different path from the way we might have chosen. Once we have accepted God as our trustworthy friend, we can do all this with great peace and detachment. We say to ourselves in admonition: “Who do we think we are to imagine that we know more than God, that our ways are better than God’s ways?!”
Does this mean that God wills all the evil, suffering, trials, and temptations that come our way? No, all of these are not willed by God. But consider that perhaps there are other wills to whom God has given the freedom to choose right or wrong, and whose choices affect not only themselves but also countless others. Nevertheless, despite the power of other free beings to thwart God’s will and desires, we still believe the inspired words of St.Paul:
“For those who love God, all things work together unto good” ( Rom 8: 28)
God is so powerful and so wise that God allows freedom to others, yet God is able in some mysterious way to turn things around so that the evil actions of others will not seriously or permanently harm us. It takes a lot of faith to believe this, especially when we see all the violence, suffering, and oppression inflicted upon the innocent; but this is what our Christian faith requires us to believe.
“To help us arrive at such a total faith and trust in God’s loving care, we must realize that our view of the totality of life is only a keyhole view in comparison to God’s over-all view from His aspect of eternity.”
Photo by Jane Slack-Smith on Unsplash
Only when we look at things from this long-range view can we accept the fact that God can bring some kind of lasting good out of even the most adverse circumstances. We have to accept and believe this if we hope to experience any kind of lasting inner peace.
If we are unwilling to believe this, what are the alternatives? “Lord, to whom else can we go? You alone have the words of eternal life!”
The only alternative is despair, frustration, fear, unhappiness, and inner turmoil. Without faith, life on earth with all its mysterious and apparent unfairness and injustice becomes absurd.
But, with faith, hope, and trust in God, we are able to experience a deep inner peace when storms are raging all around us. “For those who love God, all things work together unto good.”
Believing this is the solid base for any real and lasting inner peace.
This is the first part of several on Inner Peace.