Peace

Friends… There are many ways that we can connect with God. While we may want very much to have God show us power or healing or mercy, the one constant that we all need, and we all seek in some way or another, is to connect. To be in some way connected to God.

People seek connection to that which is beyond us, and to that which defines us. Sometimes we seek that in ways that provide disconnect instead. What we want, what we need, is to feel something, someone, some connection beyond our own selves. We seek… God.

Attached is a video of our friend from Kodiak, Alaska, Ellamy Tiller, singing the song Peace (originally by Jennifer Knapp).

https://youtu.be/hvhRcFZQZVY [i]

I love the refrain:

Oh, how I would have despaired If You had not come found me there I can lean against Your throne And find my peace, find my peace[ii]

This has often been my personal experience. While I’m busy despairing that I can’t create the connections I think I need, God comes and finds me. All I have to do is lean. Not create God. Not pray the perfect prayer or sing the perfect song. I don’t need the most amazing theology and I don’t have to have the perfect life plan. I just need to know God will come and find me, and to lean on God when that finding happens. God provides the connection, and God lifts me from the despair I feel when I recognize I can’t make life perfect on my own.

My friends, today, may you be found by God’s peace, and may you lean upon God’s chair until you are empowered to stand and walk. Amen.

[i] Sung by Ellamy Tiller. Kodiak, Alaska. Original: Jennifer Knapp. Peace. From album Letting Go. 2010.

[ii] Jennifer Knapp. Peace. From album Letting Go. 2010.