I like to think of peace as an inner paradise. In Scripture, our English word “peace” is often used to translate the Hebrew word and concept “shalom” in the Old Testament and its corresponding Greek word (eirēnē) in the New Testament. Peace is a wonderful word, but it needs some explication to capture the infinite possibilities embedded in the concept of shalom. Shalom is life as God designed it. Life as it was meant to be in the beginning. Everything is working harmoniously together to promote purpose, flourishing, and outrageous joy in every dimension of our lives.
The paradise in our genesis is a beautiful picture of this. As I wrote in my book The Lord Give You Peace: A 28 Day Journey To Thrive In God’s Shalom, “Holistic well-being describes the health Adam and Eve enjoyed in every dimension of their lives. Spiritually, they were in an intimate communion with God and were well in their souls. Relationally, they were in a loving covenant, totally transparent, and at one with each other. Psychologically, they lived without shame, and shame, as you surely know, is at the root of much mental unhealth. They were not anxious, depressed, angry, or afraid. Physically, they were in perfect health and lived in harmony with their environment. Vocationally, they did the work they were called to do. Apparently, they didn’t even sweat while doing it. Materially, they enjoyed bountiful resources.” [1] Furthermore, everything in their circle of influence was thriving and productive. And they were happy and fulfilled. This is a glimpse of paradise.
Paradise is a good description of what we receive when we receive the peace that God gives. When we believe in Jesus, we have peace with God and a new God-breathed capacity to live life the way God designed it to be lived. We enter the kingdom of God, and the kingdom of God enters us. Or we might say that we enter paradise and paradise enters us. We will not fully realize this in all its fullness until the age to come, but…we do taste the wonder of paradise now.
I write this to make a simple point: the paradise within us must be cultivated. Even though God planted the Garden of Eden, Adam was tasked with the responsibility to “work it and care for it.” [2]Adam was to nurture paradisiacal possibilities. He was to take what God alone created and make it all it had the God given potential to be. In much the same way, so must we cultivate the peace that God has placed within us, in order to bring to fruition all the shalomic possibilities that God’s peace brings. God has re-created us and brought us into a whole new reality, but we must go to work by His grace to help make this new arrangement all that it has the potential to be.
There are many ways we can do this. The practice of spiritual disciplines is one. When we spend time in prayer, reading Scripture, and worship, for instance, we grow in our relationship with God and nourish His peace within us, along with the blessings that peace makes possible. I want to focus, however, on two practices that have been fundamental to cultivating peace in my life. They are so obvious, I hesitate to mention them. Yet, I have discovered that many of us need to nurture these understandings as foundational to our relationship to God and to foster the conditions for many other good and godly things to grow.
1. Nurture an Awareness of How Much God Loves You.
I love how the Apostle Paul prayed that we would grow in our ability to fathom the fathomless love of God. “May your roots go down deep into the soil of God‘s marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all God‘s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love, really is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God.” [3]This is beautiful and revealing. As our roots go deep into the soil of God’s love…as we nourish our awareness of how much He loves us even though His love is ultimately ungraspable…we are “filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God.”[4]
I encourage you to focus on how much God loves you. The God of the universe, Creator of the world, Maker of all things, for whatever reason looks at you and loves you with a love so profound that it cannot be comprehended. But you are still supposed to try. When you grow in your understanding of His love, His peace grows within you, and so do all the shalom possibilities that flow from His peace. Your life can be more and more as He meant for it to be. Your life can look increasingly Edenic. As your awareness of His love grows in you, paradise will flourish within you. You cultivate peace when “your roots go down deep into the soil of his love.”[5]
I’ve always been fascinated with the way John described Jesus and himself in relation to Jesus. From the very opening words of his Gospel, he described Jesus in terms of His divinity. Jesus was the Word who created the world and who was made flesh. John said, excitedly in my reading, that he had beheld God’s very glory in the person of Jesus. And then, when he described himself, he says that he was the “disciple whom Jesus loved.” [6] He does this several times. Who nicknamed him “John the beloved?” John did. It’s like He is saying that the most important thing he could say about himself in light of who Jesus is - the God of the universe who came to earth as a man! - is to say “He loves me.”
And I submit to you that this is the best thing you and I can say about ourselves as well. He loves me! He loves me! He loves me! Nourish your soul with this, and your peace will grow.
2. Nurture an Awareness of How Much God Likes You.
God not only loves us, but He also likes us. Love can be rooted in obligation. Like feels more like a choice. We are commanded to love one another, but liking one another can be another thing altogether. Liking someone is less about duty and more about pleasure and delight. Of course, God chose to love us, but He likes us, too.
The psalmist wrote that God had fond thoughts about him, even though God knew everything there was to know about him - the good, bad, beautiful, and ugly. “How precious are your thoughts about me, O God!” [7] He also said that he was “fearfully and wonderfully made.” [8] Don’t think for a moment that God looks at you - made in His image, you! - and feels anything other than a fundamental affection. He made you, you, and He embedded in you the potential to be everything He created you to be. Furthermore, He redeemed you to fully become the person He made you to be. He wants you to be the best version of you, not anything or anyone else. He likes you.
Do parents like their children? Even in all of their fallen humanity? Yes. Yes. And of course. Well, please remember that though Jesus was God’s only begotten Son, He wasn’t an only child. We are all God’s children, and we had better believe that when He looks at us, He sees people whom He not only loves but likes very much.
Yes…“He likes you! You with the terrible morning breath. You who are carrying 15 extra pounds. You who didn’t send that email you told your boss you would send yesterday. You who binged Netflix last night and are struggling, bleary-eyed, to do your devotional reading. You who had to put money in the curse jar at work this week. You who are struggling with lust. You who sinned again. That doesn’t mean that He approves of, or likes, the silly or stupid or sinful things about you. But regardless of those things, He still likes you.” [9]
Part of what I think we need in order to cultivate peace in our lives is a sense that God is fully invested in that process. Even in all its two steps forward, three steps back, human reality. We need to know that He is long-suffering and patient, and, more than that, even finds delight and has “fun” with us as we are learning, growing, and becoming more fully the people He created us to be. Yes, we must cultivate the paradise He has put in us, but He has not left us alone to do this. He is present with us, loving us with unfathomable love and finding pleasure in His relationship with us.
Let’s nourish peace, beginning with nurturing our awareness of how much God loves and likes us. This is a good place to start.
[1] The Lord Give You Peace: A 28-Day Journey to Thrive in God’s Shalom, Terry A. Smith, pg. 29
[2] Genesis 2:15 NIV
[3] Ephesians 3:17-19 NLT, 1996
[4] Ephesians 3:17-19 NLT, 1996
[5] Ephesians 3:17 NLT, 1996
[6] John 13:23 NIV
[7] Psalm 139:17 NLT, 1996
[8] Psalm 139:14 NLT, 1996
[9] The Lord Give You Peace: A 28-Day Journey to Thrive in God’s Shalom, Terry A. Smith, pg. 74-75
Photo Credit: ©Unsplash/Alex Gagareen
A gifted communicator and cofounder of The New York City Leadership Center (now Movement.org), Terry speaks in a variety of national and international venues, inspiring others to discover and pursue the life God dreams for them. (www.terryasmith.com)
He is the best-selling author of The Lord Give You Peace: A 28-Day Journey to Thrive in God’s Shalom; The Lord Bless You: A 28-Day Journey to Experience God’s Extravagant Blessings; The Hospitable Leader: Create Environments Where People and Dreams Flourish; and Live Ten: Jumpstart the Best Version of Your Life. He is also the host of The Life God Dreams For You with Terry A. Smith & The Life Christian Church on WMCA 570AM & 102.3 FM, on Sunday mornings at 9am EST (www.tlcc.org/dreams)
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