Construction has begun

The people who love your instruction enjoy peace—and lots of it. There’s no stumbling for them! (Psalm 119:165 CEB)

C.S. Lewis wrote: "God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing." When the peace of God invades our hearts, there is a sense of security that comes from being 'settled' inwardly even when things outwardly may still be in chaos. God's Word can bring peace into our minds and settle our troubled souls, but too often we don't even turn to his Word when we begin to see our peace being actively disturbed. We somehow forget how 'settling' his instructions can be. If we stumble around long enough, trying to do things on our own in order to 'restore peace within', we will eventually find that all that 'stumbling around' was totally unnecessary for peace was right there in his Word.

God's Word is living and vital - it is meant to bring life, light, and transformation. Whenever we turn to his Word, we receive instruction - we may not always heed it right away, but it has been his instruction to us, nonetheless. Perhaps our peace has been disturbed today, but is that always a bad thing? I think God may allow our peace to be disturbed from time to time because without that 'disturbance', we'd likely never turn to him or his Word. God allows today's disturbance to improve tomorrow's outcome. When a surveyor looks at the land, knowing a building is about to be constructed there, what is the one thing he knows must be done before the construction can begin? The land must be 'disturbed' - turned over, moved aside, leveled off. 

That 'disturbance' prepares the site for the construction to occur. Without that disturbance, the site would be unfit for building. Even the pioneers of old 'cleared the land' to begin their building, planting, and such. The fruit you desire to see come forth from the 'land' of your soul is not going to come forth until we allow some disturbance of the soil of our hearts. God's Word may move us, revealing what is hidden just beneath the surface of that 'soil' - rocks that need to be removed in order for the 'site' to be readied for his work to begin. We turn to his Word for insight, hope, encouragement - but do we turn to it with the express purpose of being prepared for what he desires to build within us?

When we embrace God's Word, we open ourselves to instruction - what we do with that instruction makes a world of difference in what happens next. We can reject it, but the disturbance that led us there in the first place may continue or intensify. We can partially embrace it, but the peace we desired to achieve may not be felt for long. When we fully embrace his teachings, taking them to heart and allowing them to change our heart, we enter into a peace that is like no other. That peace doesn't mean there won't be some 'soil turning' going on, but it does mean we see the purpose in the work at hand and fully engage with him in that work. Just sayin!