A Good Journey

Peace, my friends. For as long as I can remember and long before I discovered I fit in with the Nines on the Enneagram, and even before I had the self-understanding and words to articulate it, I have sought peace. Not just the simple absence of conflict (which I mistakenly have, for much of my life, attempted to achieve through avoidance as my fellow Nines will understand) but true peace that comes with the understanding that regardless of what is going on around me, I am at peace with and in God and who I am in relationship with God.

This peace comes from knowing that there is absolutely nothing I can do to make God love me any more or any less than God loves me now and has always loved me even before I was born and will love me regardless of whatever mess I may get into tomorrow. It is a peace that comes from knowing I am infinitely valuable to The One who created me. And this peace comes from knowing the very same about each and every other human being on this planet. You and you and you and you and you and you and, yes, even you!

And when we know this peace, we discover that this life isn’t a competition but a companionable journey. God doesn’t love me more or less than you. God doesn’t want anything better for you than God wants for me. God doesn’t give me any more or less than you. I can’t be a better child of God than you are.

When we stop living life as a competition, we have peace. When we discover that we are all the same in God’s loving eyes, we no longer need to build ourselves up or tear each other down. This is who we are all created to be: God’s beloved children living in unity with God and each other. When we choose to live as if this weren’t true, we find ourselves in conflict with ourselves, with God, and with each other.

You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family.

Matthew 5:9, The Message

I seek peace and I know that conflict and disturbance are inevitable in this world. The two go together. Peace isn’t an absence of conflict. Peace is navigating the conflict with God. And the key to being able to readily giving ourselves over to God in times of disturbance is giving ourselves over to God in times of comfort, walking with God daily, as we journey with each other, so that regardless of what is occurring either around us or in us, we are at peace with who God is and who we are as God’s beloved children.

May the peace of God be with you!