Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
John 14:27 (NIV)
Peace Given Before Anything Happens
The lot behind the hardware store has two holes near the far goal where the ground gave out. The kids who play there after school know both of them by heart. They run wide around the deep one and use the shallow one to trap a ball. The holes have never been filled, and the game has never stopped for them.
Jesus said this on his last night with his friends. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. He calls the peace his own, and he gives it the way a man gives away something that belongs to him, in a room where what he’s been saying about leaving hasn’t landed.
I do not give to you as the world gives. What the world gives, it gives when the conditions hold. A quiet street, a test that came back clean. All of that is real while it lasts, and every bit of it depends on the day staying the way it is.
He gives his to men who have just been told he is going, and he tells them not to let their hearts be troubled while they still have no idea what’s coming.
Those kids are calm on bad ground because they’ve learned it. Every hole is somewhere in their legs by now, and the field can’t surprise them. The men in that room had no field. They were about to stand on dirt none of them had walked, and Jesus gave them his own peace before they took a step on it.
I look forward every year to the evenings when it stays light long enough that a game outside doesn’t have to end. A woman crosses the lot with a bag in each arm and stops at the edge of the dirt, and the game slows without stopping until one of the boys taps the ball toward her feet.
A Prayer to Remember
I’ve been taking my calm from whatever was nearest, and most of it has run out by evening. You don’t wait for the ground to hold before you give it, God, and I’d like to learn to take it that way. Steady me tonight where I can’t see what’s coming.
In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
