Isaiah 59:8

"The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace."
Isaiah 59:8


Today in conference, Boyd K. Packer quoted a scripture about peace... "my peace I give unto you..." and was talking about how to find peace in our lives.  And when he said that, it struck me that Christ really is the only one who has that perfect peace to call upon.  Just as it explains in the verse above (talking about Israel being separated from God because of their/our sins), because of sin, we can't find the path of peace for ourselves.  To have any in our lives, we HAVE to have Christ... who knows the peace of sinlessness.  Who has a conscience clear of offense... who is the only one who can teach us what that feels like, and who died so that we can have HIS peace in our lives.  That's the thing... we are so worried about how our sins compare to the next person's, and what we don't realize is that after that first one, we're out... we have no chance of finding that peace and absolute calm that comes from being completely clean, unless we rely on the Lord.  Then we get to another thing that we heard about this morning... humility. :)  I remember when my little brother was littler than he is... one time we set him up on the kitchen counter and had him jump into our arms.  it was cute.  then, we were done and we started to walk away... and then he climbed up and jumped again.  pure faith that someone would catch him... even though we weren't ready.  ... think about how it would be if we could rely on the Lord to catch us that way.  If we could trust him that completely.  throw ourselves on his mercy, trust in his goodness.  Unlike me with my brother, the Lord is always ready to catch us when we jump.  When we take that leap of faith and rely completely on him, he will always catch us.  We have to let go of some of our cynicism and mistrust, especially when it comes to God.  It will help us to learn some humility... and also to learn some of that vulnerability that is essential to love.  I managed to catch my brother that morning, but since then he has learned not to jump without making sure there is someone to catch him... which is good in strictly physical human terms, but I wonder how much of that mistrust we all have to unlearn in order to have faith.  The scriptures talk about peace that "passeth understanding" ... probably because we can't understand it without giving up some of our earthly lessons... and leaping anyway.  God is *always* there to catch us.