Human

I am one who is always pining for perfection: in body, soul, relationships, etc. This is usually a subconscious motive or end goal I always have churning in the back of my mind. I’m very unaware of it until it’s so obviously bursting at the seams again. I can’t escape it, this deep, intrinsic longing and need for perfection because I don’t know how to feel settled, or strong, or enough if I can’t have something, everything, be exactly the way it was always intended and created to be. I convince myself that I need it all to work properly for me to finally be “okay,” find relief, and be at ease — and what I think that means for me is that I’m really waiting, and looking, and pining for peace.

Peace in Hebrew is “shalom.” It means “completeness” or “wholeness.” It’s not a sweet relief or calm or ease. When Jesus said,

Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Don’t let your heart be troubled or fearful.

John 14:27 CSB

and later,

I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world.

John 16:33

He means that He leaves us with wholeness, completeness, and reconciliation with God (Romans 5:1).

That “peace of God, which surpasses all understanding” and guards “your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:7) is complete union with God. There is no riff with Him once we are in Christ. No tension. No walking on eggshells because of the elephant in the room. No great chasm or distance. Nothing missing. Nothing broken. Only utter nearness, wholeness, unity, forever.

I think this is what I’m really longing for when I find myself looking for perfection everywhere. I always come up empty and get caught up in despair when I go out this way. But this “shalom” seems better to me than sweet relief or calm or ease. It means that I don’t have to go looking for the thing I need when sweet relief is far from me. This means that I will not be pulled out of safety when the chaos waters come and jostle me around — the safest place I can find myself is in Christ, and He has left me wholeness with God, complete nearness with the King of the Universe and Maker of my soul.

I have felt jostled around and angry and hurt as of late. I’ve been itching to just rage at everyone because it seems to me that no one can get it together and just grow up already. But clearly, I’d need to include myself in that camp.

Here I’ve been far from the “calm” and “sweet relief” I thought was “peace,” but in truth, I really have not been divided from or lost from my God.

I must be honest and admit that this truth doesn’t completely placate the pain of a broken body, painful and divided relationships, a wounded heart, etc. We were always intended to have peace in these areas in the Beginning, before Genesis 3. But if the peace that Jesus gives is really “wholeness” and “completeness” between me and God, then everything else seems a little bit more possible and endurable.

It is a mystery that a little babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, born in a dirty cave among the bray of creation, would grow up to live a perfect life — the life we should’ve always lived and known — and give us His own perfect peace.

For a child will be born for us, a son will be given to us, and the government will be on His shoulders. He will be named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:6

O Lord, thank You. You have so mercifully offered everything that the deepest parts of us have ever longed for, no strings attached. Help us to believe. Help us to behold You, O Christ, and remain in Your perfect love. We are not alone. Especially in our brokenness, You draw ever closer.

May every other burden, worry, tension, grief, thought, and the like be set aside this Christmas.

May we set our hearts on promised hope; known faith; holy joy; free wholeness with God.

Where else would we go?

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Other resources: watch Bible Project video “Shalom/Peace”