Peace in our time

As usual, we entertain questions from Sunday's teaching.  These questions came in this week.

Q. Are we supposed to be a peace at all times? In times of distress, how  does one define peace?

A.  Great question and thanks for asking.  God wants us to live a life of peace, but it is not practical or reasonable to be at peace all the time.  Even Jesus faced times if stress of loss of peace.  Read Matthew 26 about Jesus' time in the Garden of Gethsemane and you'll discover he was under tremendous stress.

The key is to not live there.  All of us face times of stress, but continually living without the peace of God is not what He wants for us.  Jesus was stressed when He went to the garden, but not when He left it.  He was at peace with His God and God's plan for His life.

So the goal is to live in peace and when our peace is taken, pray and ask God why and seek to regain it.  I believe that God wants us to live in large blocks of peace with an occasional stressful time, rather than the  other way around.