“The presence or absence of a calm heart is part of the way He shepherds us. The absence of His peace is the stuff of madness for me and it always brings me home.”

– Heather McEwan

I RETURN home in peace; a peace that imposes itself on our understanding because we cannot understand it. And Psalm 131 represents a peace of humble acceptance; being perfectly prepared in a moment to return to God.

Verse 2 says, “Certainly I have calmed and still my soul; as a weaned child with its mother, as a weaned child is my soul within me; I have ceased to worry.”

There is a direct link between the lack of peace, a tormenting presence, and that effort we have to be better than others, to know better and to live on our own.

There is also a direct link between the peace we have always hoped for, a calm and peaceful soul, and the assumption of responsibility for our own lives, which comes from repentance.

Life was never meant to be lived without God. Life was also not meant to be run according to a rebellious heart.

When the Pastor marks a way of life, we are foolish to ignore it. However, we inevitably try on our own. We need to learn the hard way, and we do.

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There are probably no guarantees in life, but I know this is the greatest existential truth: inner peace is peace with God.

Peace with God is living according to the truth. Deviating from the truth is deviating from doing the right thing. Justice and peace are intrinsically linked. There are no fewer than seventeen verses in the Bible that acknowledge this link. *

When we do the right thing, we bequeath ourselves peace. Obeying God’s law of justice, as terribly old-fashioned as it sounds, never goes out of style. Never change. We only receive peace when we have done the right thing. And to repent is to do the right thing. Perhaps repenting, turning to God, is indeed the only way to do the right thing. I am satisfied that it is.

I am happy to take responsibility for my life, for the things I do and do not do. Because by taking responsibility, I too can sit like a child weaned from its mother. In that moment of taking responsibility, or of repenting, I have matured, for that moment. And the peace is mine.

Inner peace is peace with God. Peace with God is doing the right thing. Inner peace is doing the right thing.

The heart of God’s shepherd shepherds this eternal law: do the right thing to be at peace. Following Jesus is making the decision to live like this every day.

© 2015 SJ Wickham.

* Where justice and peace are linked in the Bible: Psalm 72: 2; 72: 7; 85:10; Isaiah 9: 7; 32:17; 48:18; 54:17; 58: 8; 60:17; 62: 1; Daniel 4:27; Romans 5: 1; 14:17; 2 Timothy 2:22; Hebrews 12:11; James 3:18.