Daily Manna · Day 32 · February 1
His Peace
“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
The complaint is reasonable enough. Your jaw has been tight for a week, you reread messages four times before sending them, and a verse telling your heart not to be troubled reads like being told to relax by someone who has never met your circumstances.
So follow the word through the book instead of reading it off a card. It starts as a title: his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. In Isaiah it becomes a price, our peace charged to the servant who was wounded for us. In Paul it becomes a legal standing before it is ever a feeling, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Then it becomes a Person outright: he is our peace, who hath made both one. And only after all of that does it become an experience, a peace past understanding set to keep the heart and mind. Keep is a garrison word, soldiers posted at a gate.
Which is what makes Jesus' sentence here so specific. My peace, He says. Not a mood He is arranging for you: the thing He personally carried into a garden and a trial that same night. And He told the same men, in the same conversation, in the world ye shall have tribulation. The gift was never a forecast of calm.
So may the Prince of Peace be, for you, not a feeling you have to generate by Friday. May what was purchased at that price be posted at the gate of your mind like a soldier who does not leave. May your heart be untroubled because it is garrisoned, and may you sleep tonight under the guard of somebody who is not tired.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 32 is A Hard Thing (2 Kings 2:9).