Like many of you, I have been praying for those affected by Hurricane Ian along the Eastern shore of the United States. I’ve also continued to pray for Ukraine and for Russia, that peace would come sooner rather than later. I want to take some time this morning to discuss crisis, along with its seeming polar opposite, peace.
Crisis brings an unwanted upheaval, disrupting our status quo, forcing us to respond in some way.
Peace, on the other hand, is that delicate, usually fleeting sense that all is well. That place where our well-being is taken care of, and we can simply rest in God’s goodness and provision for our lives.
But what if these two subjects were actually more inter-connected than we would think otherwise? This past Sunday our pastor was preaching on the Passover, and made reference to a quote by the Christian psychologist Henri Cloud (or Tony Robbins…): “We change our behavior when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing…”
Crisis is often the very location where that change takes place.
Another quote I love, this one attributed to Winston Churchill says, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” The truth is, because of our broken world and our broken hearts, peace can only be achieved when we go through the crisis. There’s a line from a children’s book that has stuck with me for some time now. It’s a silly little story called “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.” The refrain that repeats throughout the book goes something like this,
“We’ can’t go over it, we can’t go under it, we’re just going to have to go through it.”
That seems to be the right metaphor for the crises in our lives. We can’t go over them, we can’t go under them, we’re just going to have to go through them. And on the other side of those crises is a peace we can’t attain any other way.
Blessings,
Stu
This reflection first appeared in our weekly newsletter. To get content like this, along with our weekly selections from our library, click here.
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