Psalm 119:165
"Great peace have those who love Your law,
And nothing causes them to stumble."
"Peace."
What does that word mean to you?
For me, it's a bit of a foreign word. When I say it, it feels strange on my tongue...because I say it so rarely and feel it even more rarely.
"Peace." If I close my eyes and concentrate real hard, I conjure up images of "peace": a still, starry night, water lapping gently on the lake shore, a butterfly floating gently on the breeze among the flowers in the front yard, a lazy picnic lunch on a blanket in the middle of a field. "Peace."
But those moments seem so rare. So elusive. So hard to find and even harder to capture in memory to recall during the crazy, hectic, breakneck speed of everyday life.
Why is peace so hard to find?
Why can't I be like the lilies of the field, the birds of the air?
Why is there always so much preying on my mind, my heart, my soul?
If I was to re-word this verse and apply it to my everyday life, it would probably read something like, "Great distress, unrest, and worry have those who live life, and everything causes them to freak out."
But maybe that's just it: we get so caught up in "living life" - the bills, the laundry, the dishes, the grocery shopping, the daily grind, the errands, the housework, the appearing at social functions, the hobbies - that we are forgetting the whole point of life in the first place. The reason we're here. What's meant to keep us going. "LOVE the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind" and "LOVE your neighbor as yourself."
The whole point is love. The whole law can be summed up in one word: LOVE!
And when I'm stressed and busy and pulled in fifty million different directions at once? Where is there room for love? Where is there room for peace? There's no room because I haven't prioritized it. I haven't put it at the top of my ever-growing To Do List.
Yes, laundry is a necessity, but will the whole world implode if I never have completely empty laundry baskets downstairs?
Yes, dishes are needed, but will I be arrested if there are always a few dishes drying in the rack or waiting to be washed on the counter?
Yes, I need to keep my house so that it's not unsanitary to live in, but Better Homes & Gardens isn't coming to do a photo shoot anytime soon.
I put so much stress on myself. So much unnecessary stress. I stress the things that don't really matter & that no one's going to care two cents about at the end of my life and forget to invest in the moments that matter.
"Great peace have those who love Your law" - the Law of Loving. That's all it is. Not some unattainable list of do's and don'ts, but a law of loving as many people as I can as much as I can.
And here's the promise: "Nothing causes them to stumble."
Not the unfolded laundry. Not the unscrubbed shower. Not the imperfect flower bed.
No guilt. No worry. No fear.
Nothing can cause me to stumble when my eyes are fixed on the One guiding me Home.
