Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God

Matthew 5:9 

A few years ago, when I began my walk [again] with God, a friend that I met when I was in my Ed program kindly mailed me these daily devotionals and a study bible by surprise. I was so touched. To this day, I read those daily devotionals and reference my study bible here and again. That said, when referencing Matthew 5:9, there is a chart entitled, “Beatitudes” on the following page of my bible. Here “the peacemakers” are presented as having the character quality of reconciliation and the description is: Forbearance instead of retaliation; forgiveness of wrongs; restoration of fellowship.

As I reflect from Sunday’s sermon and this description of the scripture from my study bible, I cannot help but think of what the opposite of peacemaking is - to me, that is aggression and destruction. These are some of the many attributes of anger, and anger can be a very destructive emotion if bottled up or if allowed to excessively flow out. But I’d be lying if I said this is not challenging.

So why is peacemaking challenging? In an article on her website, Brené Brown writes about leading from hurt versus leading from heart. This resonates with me because, it is a lot easier to be angry than it is to be hurt. Anger is an easier state of being. She says, “Leading from hurt rather than leading from heart means… …we’re not addressing the real driver of our pain, this behavior isn’t an occasional angry slip. Inflicting hurt rather than feeling hurt becomes a habit.”

Like Brenna reminded us on Sunday, we must tend to ourselves like a garden. When lacking awareness, or as Brené states this becoming a habit, we can cause quite a bit of harm. I really appreciate how Brenna described actively working in peacekeeping as children of God. It is active work. There is no autopilot here.

How can we restore and contend for ourselves, others, our communities, and in a larger scope? Borrowing those terms from the Global Immigration Project’s model of Peacekeeping that was introduced to us on Sunday.

Random to bring up, but relevant; years ago, when I was studying Buddhism, one of my takeaways was this phrase I learned from our meditations about world peace. The saying is “we cannot have outer peace without inner peace.” Too like described above from Brown’s article –  we are not addressing the real driver of our pain.

Let’s answer God’s call to be peacemakers. What might you be able to address to be a peacemaker today?

-- Denia 

*Brown, B. (2018, December 4). Leading from Hurt Versus Leading from Heart. Brené Brown. https://brenebrown.com/articles/2018/12/04/leading-from-hurt-versus-leading-from-heart/