Do Not Resent. Do Not React. Keep Inner Stillness.
On cultivating inner peace
It turns out that the boring life is actually the good life. This is one of the best kept secrets. Someone told me today that I always look like I’m keeping some sort of secret. I get that from time to time. I suppose I come off as suspicious or mischievous because I have a naturally suspecting or inquiring mind. Why does the world work the way it does? I can’t help it, I swim deep. The deeper you go, the more you have to be built for the pressure. Some fish are built for that, others are not, in the vast variety of the ocean floor.
My point though is that the key to inner peace, contentment, and relaxation is the same whether you swim shallow or swim deep, it makes no difference. Staying too shallow breeds foolishness, and staying too deep breeds worldly wisdom, arrogance, and despair.
This is nothing new. Solomon wrote this all out for us millennia ago in Ecclesiastes.
So beware, if you think yourself wise, you sort of come full circle and end up on the same path as the fool.
If you do not know God, and God does not know you, you will sort of continually spin out through life, trying to learn your way, discover your way, pleasure your way, enhance your way, discipline your way into final satisfaction and rest, which will always be fleeting.
“All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor is the ear filled with hearing.” — Ecclesiastes 1:8
Do you know God?
If the default is that we’ll always be “chasing the next thing”, when we bump up against the Gospel and the cross of Christ, and understand the message, suddenly the utter simplicity and eternal depth of it makes our soul still.
This God-man, Jesus Christ, lived a perfect life, was betrayed, unjustly accused, and nailed to a cross. But he submitted to the injustice willingly to carry out the eternal justice by purchasing my freedom, once and for all.
In this one act of atonement, and my faith in it, I am now living out an “upside down kingdom”.
I am no longer blinded and deceived by the pride of trying to “earn my way” to righteousness. I can instead rest in the grace of Jesus for me.
Each and every day, this truth stands before me, and each and every day, the Holy Spirit compels and enables me to put my faith in it. It’s an incredible treasure. It’s actually the source of life.
The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it. — Matthew 13:44-46
This is the “secret”.
Because of this, because of finding the treasure of life in Christ, I have eternal and lasting peace that transcends the waves of difficulty of this world.
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. — John 14:27
Life in Christ is actually the real “life hack”. It is the real “enlightenment” and the real “transcendentalism”. And the awesome part of it all, is that it is a gift that one receives. You cannot receive a gift until you stop trying to pay for it through your deeds and accomplishments. God’s grace goes deep. God’s grace brings inner stillness.