COURAGE, BRAVEHEART

Today I had a conversation with a close friend over lunch today, and he said, “I am stressed out all the time. I hate all of this….Life. The people. The concrete. The stress of it all. I just want to get away from everything and be by myself in the woods.”

I understood his sentiments exactly. Peace. Quiet. Contentment. Tranquility. Nature. Who doesn’t want that? Getting away from the rat race and just being at peace in your mind and your spirit. Add in a beautiful location where you can finally slow down and rest and you’ve got it made. Yes, please! I’ll take a one-way ticket there anytime.

Then I asked him, “How are you finding ways to do that in life right now? With all of the responsibilities, the bills, the kids, the schedules, the work commitments? What are you doing in life to bring about that peace and contentment that you’re longing for?”

And do you know what he said?

He said, “I don’t think I’ll ever be content and at peace until the day I die.”

Ugh. That broke my heart. Until the day you die? That’s a long time to wait for peace and contentment, my friend. The idea of him struggling through the pain of everyday life without hope that he’ll find what it is he’s looking for until he’s six feet under, doesn’t seem like a very appealing way of existing. That seems like just getting by. No. That’s not good enough. We were created for more than just getting by. We were created for fullness of life. For joy and peace. For connectedness with others. With nature. With friends and loved ones. We were created for learning, and expressing, and growing, and laughter. We were created to give back. To live life to the fullest. And in my book, the fullest is not just getting by.

What I wanted to do was jump up and say, “No! That doesn’t have to be true. It doesn’t have to look that way. You can have this peace and contentment you’re talking about and you can find it in the Lord!” I believe that to be true to the very depths of my core. But I know him. He wouldn’t hear it or receive it, if that was my basis for finding this peace and contentment. He respects that’s how I see God, but he just sees Him differently. So I decided to find a way to appeal to him on his terms, while still giving solid biblical truth that will hopefully, one day, be the thing that changes all of this for him.

So I started researching peace and contentment and how to find it, and here’s what I learned:

“Contentment is a mental or emotional state of satisfaction maybe drawn from being at ease or at peace in one’s situation, body and mind. Colloquially speaking, contentment could be a state of having accepted one’s situation and is a milder and more tentative form of happiness.”

Webster’s dictionary says, “Peace is freedom from disturbance; quiet and tranquility.”

But when I did a little more digging on the word peace and where it originally came from, I loved what I found in an article by Doug Hershey with FIRM.

The Hebrew word for peace is “shalom” and is taken from the root word “shalam,” which means “to be safe in mind, body, or estate.” It means completeness, fullness, or a type of wholeness that encourages you to give back — to generously re-pay something in some way.

True biblical shalom refers to an inward sense of completeness or wholeness. Although it can describe the absence of war, a majority of biblical references refer to an inner completeness and tranquility. In Israel today, when you greet someone or say goodbye, you say, Shalom. You are literally saying, “may you be full of well-being” or “may health and prosperity be upon you.”

HOLY COW!! Yes, please. Isn’t that what we all want? Inner completeness. Inner fullness. Inner tranquility. Inner wholeness. I don’t know about you, but I want that treasure. And I want it NOW! And so does my friend. The trouble is, given life’s circumstances and limitations, how do we go about getting that treasure and holding onto it? Where do we find it?

I started thinking back onto when I was a kid. (I’ve started doing this a lot in my life. Revisiting my childlike mind and my way of thinking and man, have I have been learning so much. There really is such wisdom in looking back and getting into that free, trusting, kind, sweet and innocent way of thinking again.) What were the things I loved? The things that brought me the most joy and happiness? The most peace and contentment? For me, those things were simple:

Nature. Climbing trees, laying in a field, playing in a treehouse (yes, I still want to live in the Swiss-family Robinson treehouse), swimming in a river, catching lightning bugs, riding my bike, stopping to smell flowers, playing in the sprinklers, playing kick the can, drinking the sweet nectar from honeysuckles and running around bare-foot. This is my childhood at its core and I have felt a deep connection to nature all my life.

Creativity. I always wanted to create something magical. Another world. Another place. Another time. Another person. Whether I was building forts, playing army in the woods, writing plays and putting them on with my siblings for our parents and their friends, or playing dress-up and talking in accents while pretending my sister’s 4-poster bed was a carriage taking us to a grand party…it was endless and limitless.

Reading. I have loved reading for as long as I can remember. The ability to learn so much, to escape to some far away place in my mind where I meet wonderful, interesting characters, and where I can express and feel everything going on in the story. This has always made me feel like a part of something special and unique. Reading still makes my heart soar and will always be one of my favorite activities.

Horses. There’s something about their spirits. I have always felt connected to horses and never unsafe around them. I felt like riding them was always very natural for me, and like they understood me and I understood them in some way. There is such power and safety in horses. And FREEDOM. The ability to run as fast and as wild as you want with no one to stop you. Yep. Horses are my JAM.

Baking. When the holidays rolled around, I was always the one wanting to try new recipes. “How about a new bread recipe? Or what about a strawberry Nutella pie this time, instead of just the plain old apple? Guys, I found this rosemary blood orange bundt cake!” It was always something new. But the idea of being in the kitchen and creating something delicious for everyone to sit around a table together and enjoy has always brought a smile to my face.

Fire. I was a little obsessed with fire when I was a kid. I thought it was fascinating and could stare at it for hours. Not without me throwing something into it just to see how it’d burn, before my mom would yell at me to stop it! I’d steal matches and light them just to watch them burn. I love love love fireplaces so much and literally want one in every room of my house one day. Bonfires were the best. Still are. And fireworks were the most magical show-stopping thing there was. Paper lanters…I can’t. Pure magic.

Music. Whether we were listening to oldies music with my dad, dancing around the house to 70’s tunes, taking a bath to Enya, crying to classical music, or enjoying 40’s style jazz and feel-good country, music has always been a constant in my life and in my heart.

Design. I remember looking at my mom’s design magazines all my life, dreaming up what my perfect house would look like one day. And the bed and breakfast I would create to be like a Thomas Kinkade painting – with each little cottage for my guests, each complete with a fireplace, where they would be taken in a horse-drawn carriage and their breakfast would be delivered to their doorstep each morning.

Water. Be it the ocean, a river, a lake, waterfalls, sprinklers, or a rainstorm, I LOVE WATER. We spent hours body surfing with my dad in the ocean. If I came to a river, I had to take my shoes off and walk barefoot through it. Going to the lake and wake-boarding and having tube-wars was a favorite pastime. I love being in, under, or bounding off of a waterfall. I would spend hours running through the sprinklers and always wanted to stay outside in a rainstorm.

Hammocks & Rocking Chairs. Something about the peaceful and relaxing sway just puts me at ease.

Thrill Seeking Adventures. Be it skydiving, cliff jumping, scuba-diving, 4-wheeling, dirt bike riding, rock climbing, horseback riding, wanting a motorcycle so bad I can taste it, spelunking, surfing, parasailing, snowboarding, or any other thing you can think of, I am an adrenaline junkie through and through. I love the adventure of it all, the thrill that comes from doing something scary. It makes me feel alive and I’m not sure it’s ever something I’ll get over. I want to try anything and everything I possibly can. Except maybe climbing Everest. And that’s still a maybe.

God’s Word, The Holy Spirit, Nature & Worship. I have always felt a deep reverence and a deep sense of intimacy with the Lord when I am in worship to Him, when I am reading His word, when I hear someone teach His word, when I go for prayer walks on my favorite trails, and especially in my prayer and quiet time. This is a deeply personal thing for me and is where I have received the most wisdom and teaching in my life. It is a comfort to my soul to know that we have hope in the Lord and that we are never alone.

These are the things that brought me joy. They brought me peace. These are the places where even today, I find myself the most contented. I think it’s vitally important to reconnect ourselves to these things. To get back to what we first loved as children. After all, in Matthew 19:14, Jesus says, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children.”

Who are like these children. He is reminding us to go back to being childlike. That there is something beneficial in that. I think as adults, we’ve all gotten too serious for our own good. Now that’s not to say life is a joke and never serious. Of course that’s not what I mean. But what I am saying is we’ve forgotten how to be childlike. We’ve forgotten how to laugh and play. We’ve forgotten the simple things. It used to be so easy to imagine. It was easy to play make-believe. To not over think things. We could be upset one minute and happy as a clam the next. Nothing was taken too seriously and certainly not for too long. We knew how to share. How to include. How to rest when we needed rest. Should I really keep going…I think the list is pretty long. But you get the point.

It think this is where is all has to start. And I think the key component in all of this is…

It requires you to be dependent on someone other than yourself.

Let that sink it for a minute.

What would that feel like? Amazing? Scary? A freaking relief (lemme see the hands of all the moms out there!)? And let me tell you, there is only ONE PERSON who will always be there, who will never fail you, who knows you the very best, who will give you just what you need at just the right moment.

And that person is: (Sunday school answer) Jesus.

He and He alone can satisfy that deep yearning and need within each of us. He is peace. He is joy. He is contentment. He completes. He fulfills. He satisfies. He brings tranquility. He brings wholeness. He brings shalom. You may find moments of it in the things you love because it is a part of our make up. But to find the continued, constant, contentment you really desire. The one that fills the void. That can only be found by focusing our eyes on Jesus.

So if you happen to be looking for these things in any other place, or you’re lost and aren’t sure where to find them like my friend, then you are likely going to be disappointed and left wanting. You might have the same perspective that you won’t find what you’re looking for until you’re six feet under. But I’m here to tell you my friends, that you don’t have to wait that long. Because He’s ready for you now. He’s yours for the taking!