Searching for Peace
Someone made the comment the other day, "people want to know if their lives have purpose. They want to know why they are here on earth, if life has any meaning."
How true this is. This question is at the heart of every person, whether we realize it or not. What is the meaning of life? How am I to find happiness in this life? What shall I do with my life?
Pope John Paul II speaks beautifully and extensively about these questions, questions he himself pondered over the years, as he saw hardship, suffering and Nazi and Soviet occupation of Poland. Pope John Paul II encouraged young people and old as well, to drink deeply from the well of Jesus, to look within one's heart and in one's own life experience and see the truth that it is, indeed, only God who can truly satisfy us.
No created person or thing or job can completely satisfy us. It's only our Divine Lover who can completely fulfill us.
In the full version of the Serenity Prayer it reads "accepting hardship as a pathway to peace." What? accepting hardship as a pathway to peace? what about "accepting good times as a pathway to peace?" As we grow through our difficulties and sufferings, which come to us all, the measure in which we pray to be open to accept what we cannot change and pray for courage to change what we can- that is the measure of our peace.
If peace were only possible as an absence of difficulty, then Jesus would have been the most troubled person on the face of the Earth. But as we know, He is the Prince of Peace. What is he showing us? What is the "cure for the pain?" That Jesus didn't run away from suffering and the Cross and hardship. He didn't make light of it nor did He feel sorry for himself. He embraced suffering and pain and death in love and for our redemption. Suffering and death does not have the last word.
Life and Love lasts forever.
Jon Foreman sings it well in his song "Cure for the Pain"
How true this is. This question is at the heart of every person, whether we realize it or not. What is the meaning of life? How am I to find happiness in this life? What shall I do with my life?
Pope John Paul II speaks beautifully and extensively about these questions, questions he himself pondered over the years, as he saw hardship, suffering and Nazi and Soviet occupation of Poland. Pope John Paul II encouraged young people and old as well, to drink deeply from the well of Jesus, to look within one's heart and in one's own life experience and see the truth that it is, indeed, only God who can truly satisfy us.
No created person or thing or job can completely satisfy us. It's only our Divine Lover who can completely fulfill us.
In the full version of the Serenity Prayer it reads "accepting hardship as a pathway to peace." What? accepting hardship as a pathway to peace? what about "accepting good times as a pathway to peace?" As we grow through our difficulties and sufferings, which come to us all, the measure in which we pray to be open to accept what we cannot change and pray for courage to change what we can- that is the measure of our peace.
If peace were only possible as an absence of difficulty, then Jesus would have been the most troubled person on the face of the Earth. But as we know, He is the Prince of Peace. What is he showing us? What is the "cure for the pain?" That Jesus didn't run away from suffering and the Cross and hardship. He didn't make light of it nor did He feel sorry for himself. He embraced suffering and pain and death in love and for our redemption. Suffering and death does not have the last word.
Life and Love lasts forever.
Jon Foreman sings it well in his song "Cure for the Pain"
Comments