Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“Peace, peace, to the far and the near, says the Lord; and I will heal them. But the wicked are like the tossing sea that cannot keep still; its waters toss up mire and mud. There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked.”
NL Daily Devotion for Friday, June 23, 2023
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
I do this to myself. If you take a moment to read the rest of the passage, you’ll see that God keeps trying to heal us and comfort us and lead us in the right way, but we stubbornly and perversely insist on our own way which only hurts us. In our endless search for peace (on our terms), we sabotage any chance of actually achieving it, because we turn away from the only one who can provide it.
As a recovering addict, I am very in touch with the way my need to control the universe in order to wrest some kind of inner peace from it backfired over and over and over again. It wasn’t until I gave up and let God run the show that I found the release I needed from being the “tossing sea that cannot keep still.” But even now, I can find myself starting to “toss up mire and mud” when dealing with uncomfortable situations, and sometimes it takes beating my head against a wall for a while before I realize I don’t need to keep doing this to myself. God’s peace is fully and vitally available to me any time I loosen my grasp on my need to control.
When do I find myself struggling to find peace? How does God help me?
