Daily Manna · Day 41 · February 10
Always Peace
“Now the Lord of peace himself give you peace always by all means. The Lord be with you all.”
You are two days past the argument and the house still feels like a held breath. Nobody is shouting. Nobody is talking either.
Set that beside a congregation in Thessalonica, roughly AD 51, with a specific and unpleasant problem. Some members had stopped working, were living off the others, and were going around as busybodies. Paul's instruction is severe. Note that man, have no company with him, that he may be ashamed. And then, immediately, because he can see how that will go: yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother. This is a church about to have an extremely awkward season. Somebody will overreact. Somebody will be quietly written off for good.
The next sentence out of Paul's pen is the verse. Now the Lord of peace himself give you peace always by all means. Always, in every circumstance; by all means, by every route. He does not pray it over a reconciled church. He prays it over one he has just handed a disciplinary instruction to, because he knows the peace will have to be given rather than achieved, and given into a room that has not sorted itself out yet.
Which is the same room you are in, at a smaller scale, with the dishwasher open.
So may the Lord of peace himself give you peace, not once the house is fixed, but tonight, in the house as it stands. May it come by whichever road is open, and may you not despise it for arriving before the apology does. The Lord be with you all.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 41 is Learning the Voice (1 Samuel 3:10).