“There is no peace except the peace of God.”
Seek you no further. You will not find peace except the peace of
God. Accept this fact, and save yourself the agony of yet more bitter
disappointments, bleak despair, and sense of icy hopelessness and
doubt. Seek you no further. There is nothing else for you to find
except the peace of God, unless you seek for misery and pain.
This is the final point to which each one must come at last, to
lay aside all hope of finding happiness where there is none; of being
saved by what can only hurt; of making peace of chaos, joy of pain
and Heaven out of hell. Attempt no more to win through losing, nor
to die to live. You cannot but be asking for defeat.
Yet you can ask as easily for love, for happiness, and for eternal
life in peace that has no ending. Ask for this, and you can only win.
To ask for what you have already must succeed. To ask that what is
false be true can only fail. Forgive yourself for vain imaginings, and
seek no longer what you cannot find. For what could be more
foolish than to seek and seek and seek again for hell, when you have
but to look with open eyes to find that Heaven lies before you,
through a door that opens easily to welcome you?
Come home. You have not found your happiness in foreign
places, and in alien forms which have no meaning to you, though you
sought to make them meaningful. This world is not where you belong.
You are a stranger here. But it is given you to find the means whereby
the world no longer seems to be a prison house for you or anyone.
Freedom is given you where you beheld but chains and iron
doors. For you must change your mind about the purpose of the
world, if you would find escape. You will be bound till all the world
is seen by you as blessed, and everyone made free of your mistakes
and honored as he is. You made him not; no more yourself. And as
you free the one, the other is accepted as he is.
What does forgiveness do? In truth it has no function and does
nothing, for it is unknown in Heaven. It is only hell where it is needed,
and where it must serve a mighty function. Is not the escape of God’s
beloved Son from evil dreams that he imagines, yet believes are true, a
worthy purpose? Who could hope for more while there appears to be
a choice to make between success and failure; love and fear?
There is no peace except the peace of God because He has one
Son, who cannot make a world in opposition to God’s Will and to
his own, which is the same as His. What could he hope to find in
such a world? It cannot have reality because it never was created. Is it
here that he would seek for peace? Or must he see that, as he looks
on it, the world can but deceive? Yet can he learn to look on it
another way, and find the peace of God.
Peace is the bridge that everyone will cross to leave this world
behind. But it begins within the world perceived as different, and
leading from this fresh perception to the gate of Heaven and the way
beyond. Peace is the answer to conflicting goals, to senseless journeys,
frantic, vain pursuits and meaningless endeavors. Now the way is
easy, sloping gently toward the bridge where freedom lies within the
peace of God.
Let us not lose our way again today. We go to Heaven, and the
path is straight. Only if we attempt to wander can there be delay, and
needless wasted time on thorny byways. God alone is sure, and He
will guide our footsteps. He will not desert His Son in need, nor let
him stray forever from his home. The Father calls; the Son will hear.
And that is all there is to what appears to be a world apart from God,
where bodies have reality.
Now is there silence. Seek no further. You have come to where the
road is carpeted with leaves of false desires, fallen from the trees of
hopelessness you sought before. Now are they underfoot. And you
look up and on toward Heaven, with the body’s eyes but serving for an
instant longer now. Peace is already recognized at last, and you can feel its
soft embrace surround your heart and mind with comfort and with love.
Today we seek no idols. Peace can not be found in them. The
peace of God is ours, and only this will we accept and want. Peace be
to us today. For we have found a simple, happy way to leave the
world of ambiguity, and to replace our shifting goals and solitary
dreams with single purpose and companionship. For peace is union if
it be of God. We seek no further. We are close to home, and draw still
nearer every time we say:
“There is no peace except the peace of God,
And I am glad and thankful it is so.”
Britney Shawley added:
Peace is the bridge that everyone will cross, to leave this world behind. But peace begins within the world perceived as different, and leading from this fresh perception to the gate of Heaven and the way beyond. Peace is the answer to conflicting goals, to senseless journeys, frantic, vain pursuits, and meaningless endeavors. Now the way is easy, sloping gently toward the bridge where freedom lies within the peace of God.