April, 1984
The second step toward inner peace is to find a way of accepting the particular destiny or fate to which God’s providence has consigned us.
Seldom will this be according to all our dreams, desires, hopes, or ambitions. Only an exceedingly rare person finds that God’s plans coincide with one’s own hopes and ambitions.
Almost without exception all of us will need to sacrifice some of the hopes and desires we had when we were young or have clung to even unto old age. Just as Abraham had to be willing to sacrifice his Isaac, so can we expect God to ask us to sacrifice a number of our “little Isaacs”.
We need to give God at least ten years of lead time in order that His decisions in our regard be justified. Sometimes one may go through a whole lifetime without understanding why it was not God’s will that some of one’s life’s desires were not fulfilled.
But, usually, if we will just be patient and wait, we will realize that God’s wisdom was right when some of our desires and ambitions were thwarted. We must always remember that God is looking at our lives from the aspect of eternity and the good of the present and future human race.
However, even here God never sacrifices the good of any individual for the sake of others. By His almighty power and wisdom He arranges things so that whatever He might ask, in the long run, will redound to everyone’s best interests and welfare. A blind act of faith and trust in His infinite wisdom, power, goodness, and love is required to accept this.
“Once we reconcile ourselves to going God’s way rather than our way, we feel a deep inner peace about the eventual outcome of every situation in which we find ourselves.”
Instead of crying over spilled milk or trying to cross bridges before we get to them, we will live in the present, and do whatever seems right and best at the time, and trust God to take care of the rest.
This means being totally realistic in living with our situation. Thus we will be able to accomplish the greatest possible good with every new opportunity that is presented to us without being hung-up with self-doubt and inner turmoil.
Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide
If we are to experience peace within ourselves, it is absolutely essential that we strive to follow the inner voice of our conscience so that our external conduct is in accord with our inner sense of right and wrong.
Much of the unhappiness and tension that is experienced in life is due to this lack of authenticity. As long as we are blind to our shadow, we will not be able to know for certain what the inner voice of conscience is trying to tell us.
Very often our tension or turmoil is not due to any deliberate decision to go against one’s conscience but is due rather to a lack of good connection between our consciousness and our unconscious inner self.
At Peace With Our Past and Future
Many people are restless and lack inner peace because of their anxiety about either the past or the future.
They keep reliving their past deeds or failures and become filled with deep regret and unhappiness because they have not lived their lives in a better, more authentic way. Or, they become over-anxious about some future event or meeting.
To experience inner peace, we must remind ourselves that God does not hold us accountable for either the past or the future, but only for the present. The past is gone and is no longer ours to change. The future is still in the hands of God and does not become our responsibility until it becomes the present.
The best way to make amends for our past mistakes and to prepare for future events is to do a good job in the present. God only holds us accountable for the present moment and the present event. This is the only part of life that we can call our own. All the rest, both past and future, should be entrusted to God’s loving care.
Regarding past mistakes, St. John of the Cross states: “One act of pure love of God (practiced here and now, in the present moment) is sufficient to atone for a lifetime of sin.” Regarding the future, Jesus tells in the Sermon on the Mount: “Enough then of worrying about tomorrow. Let tomorrow take care of itself.”
“Sufficient for the day is the trouble thereof” (Matt 6:34). If we live in the present with an attitude of trust in God’s constant care, inner peace will be ours.
Abraham Maslow, the famous Brandeis University psychiatrist, studied some 500 mature and successful people to determine what they all had in common which made for their effectiveness. One attribute found in all of these self-actualized, individuated men and women was what Maslow called their “Time Competency,” meaning their ability to give most of their energy to living in the present and dealing with the needs and problems at hand.
His conclusion was that the ideal toward which everyone should strive is to give 85% of one’s attention and energy to solving the problems of the present moment and only 15% to learning from one’s past experiences or preparing for future events. This amounts approximately to a ratio of one to eight.
In other words, for every hour spent thinking about either the past or the future, we should give eight hours to being involved with the present. This is, of course, the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus gave us a blueprint for a happy, blessed, peaceful life.
Peace With Those Around Us
Because of the close bonds of reaction and interaction between ourselves and other human beings, we need to learn to live in harmony not only with our family, or those with whom we live and share our life, but also with all those with whom we come into contact at work, at church, at community exercises, at school, etc.
We should go even a step further and endeavor to be in harmony with people of different races and classes of society in both our own and other nations. St. Paul expressed this very well: “There is that daily tension pressing on me, my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak and I am not affected by it? Who is scandalized and I am not aflame with indignation?” (2 Cor 11: 28-29).
It is not always possible for us to bring peace to all those around us, but we are expected to help them find true peace. As long as our conscience tells us that we are doing all we can to help them, we can be at peace ourselves. However, we should not be too quick to arrive at this conclusion.
At times we should consult someone who can give us a more objective viewpoint of whether we are doing all we should. Spiritual direction may be needed to discern our obligations and the ways to achieve them.
Peace With Our Enemies
Peace with our enemies is placed last not only because it is the most difficult to attain, but also because it is possible only if we are working toward inner peace in the other areas of our lives.
The term “enemy” is used in the broad sense of describing all those whom we have hurt or injured, as well as all those who have hurt us in any way, or are a threat to us. This would include individuals, nations, races, or other classes of society.
Jesus taught that if we wish to be his followers, we must love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, turn the other cheek, and go the extra mile. He insisted that we must be as merciful toward our enemies as God is merciful toward sinners. Then we will partake of the perfection, wholeness, and peace of God.
At the very last of Jesus’ teaching on love of enemies, he said: “In a word, you must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt 6: 48). As long as we hold hatred toward another person, our hearts will be in turmoil.
“As long as we refuse to forgive those who have hurt us, as long as we neglect to do all we can to become reconciled with those whom we have hurt or who have hurt us, we will not be at peace. “
Therefore, in order to arrive at interior peace, each one of us must become a peacemaker. We must seek to establish reconciliation and forgiveness between ourselves and all other human beings.
Regardless of whom we might judge to be at fault, our responsibility is to try to bring about peace, even though we may not necessarily succeed. Jesus was unable to be a peacemaker with the Pharisees, Scribes, and others who showed enmity toward him.
But we must try, and keep trying, and always look for opportunities to make peace with those who dislike us, regardless of whether we are at fault or not.
As long as we are doing all that our conscience and common sense tell us to be reconciled with our foes, then we can experience inner peace regardless of the outcome of our efforts.
In such endeavors toward peacemaking, Jesus insists that praying for our enemies and for those who do us injury is most important.
When we can sincerely pray for our enemies, wish them well, and ask God to bless and help them, we thereby manifest that we no longer hold hatred in our hearts toward them.
But, if we find it impossible to pray and ask God to bless and help them, the indication is that we still have not forgiven them. At the same time, it is very important to understand that to ask God to bless and help them does not imply we are asking God to confirm them in their evil deeds, but rather to redirect them toward His will.
A sincere love of our adversaries may require us at times to confront others with their wrong-doing. This is what Jesus did toward the Pharisees and his other enemies.
Confronting evil is the way of victimhood and can only be attempted if one has a true agapic love. This means one should have a willingness to sacrifice one’s life in the confrontation if God should so will and if in some way it would help these and their victims.
This is Part Two of Three on Inner Peace