to be a peacemaker

I have a short list: a list of peacemakers.

He is one of the most thoughtful, knowledgeable, smart humans alive.  He reads widely and has a gift with words.  He probably has an opinion on most things.  In spite of his intelligence, I have never once witnessed him speaking down to someone or shaming someone.  He holds his opinions with humility and grace.  And although I’m sure I say many things that he disagrees with, he never says so – instead, he always takes the opportunity to remind me of my value as a daughter of the King.

She has known me for a while now, and she only gives advice when I ask for it.  But our conversations are always covered in love.  She understands the brokenness of life and my imperfections, and she probably disagrees with some of the things I say, but I’d never know it, because our conversations are characterized by love.

I’m pretty much always a mess, but he doesn’t condemn me.  He accepts me as I am – flaws readily apparent and all.  This gives me the courage to live for Jesus even more radically and determinedly than I thought possible.  I am better because of knowing him.

She knows me better than probably anyone on earth.  She knows my angry times, she knows my happy times, and she knows my prideful times.  But I never feel judgment or exasperation, only love.  Each and every time we talk, I leave the conversation feeling more peace than before.  She points me to Jesus through her love, and she is such an example to me of how to lead someone to Christ; it was her who, in the words of Jonathan Martin, “loved [me] enough to take [me] by the hand and lead [me] out into the aisle.” (Jonathan Martin, Protoype, p. 180)

This is what I want to be: a peacemaker.  I want my life to be defined, not by the opinions I hold or the arguments I win, but by the love I show and the peace I bring to those in my life.

When I have opinions, I want them to be opinions that give life, opinions that bring peace, and opinions that create beauty from ashes.  I want never to point out injustice without paving the way for justice.  I want to bring a violent peace to my world, a peace that is only mine to give because of the violent peace for which Christ suffered and died.  It's violent because it shakes the foundations of this sinful world, peace because it shatters evil by its very presence.

The night becomes day,
the darkness light.
The lonely places become saturated with Jesus
the sadness eternal joy.

1 John 1:5-9
5 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.