“Now the Lord of peace himself give you peace always by all means. The Lord be with you all.” (2 Thess. 3:16)
For how long? How long can you stay in your favorite place, no frustrations from the world, no pressing matters upon you, no interruptions of any kind are placed upon you, peaceful and content, but for how long. Something always arrives that demands our attention, that needs to be done whether we desire to do so or not, and that peace is hindered, frustrations will arrive, trials and tribulations and that peace will flee from us.
Is the presence of joy peace?
“Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.” (Psalm 16:11)
I believe far too many people who profess Christ as Lord see heaven as a perpetual place of peace, of joy and great happiness, as a place void of frustrations and sorrows, as in a sense a permanent vacation from adverse conditions, and while we will be changed, glorified before we enter into that rest, sitting in your new favorite place in heaven is not the absence of trials, but only still momentary rest.
Can a man who desires to serve the Lord God find rest forever when the task is done that has been before him, or only in between those tasks? In six days the Almighty created the heavens and the earth and all that is within them, then rested on the seventh, but He has not stopped creating, nor do I believe He ever will. All there is, is not all there will ever be.
We rest in between the tasks that have been set before us, we find peace in those moments when the Holy Spirit says to us, “Well done,” but we do not find eternal rest in them, nor do I believe we ever will.
Over a period of a year or so, my beautiful wife memorized one hundred verses from the Bible, and her soul found peace and more in them, but when the goal was reached she did not find continual rest, and so she spent even more time, searching the Scriptures for all the relevant and corresponding verses to those one hundred, wrote them down and as she did, offered them to the Lord and as a great blessing to me in devotional studies at our evening meals. But now what?
It is not that the peace she found in those years will be lost now that she has reached her goal, but she will not rest on the path forever, there will be more, there is always more to come for those who desire to fulfill Provers 8:17 in their lives, “I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me.”
Peace is not lost when the goals are met, but there is little time to rest in them, for there is more, more of the Lord to be searched out, more of Him to be found. Those moments and seasons of rest and peace in heaven will be incomparable to anything that we have experienced in this life here, but they will not last, for we will forever be seeking ever more of the Lord, contentment within contentment, peace piled upon peace, goal after goal, rest within rest.
We grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord as we seek His face, and that growth will never end. “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.” (John 14:27)
And even more awaits us.
