The Time is Now!

I wrote weeks ago about my trip to Israel and Palestine. The countdown clock has finally wound down to mere hours before my departure. The time is now.

I have had many people ask if I was scared, and if you will remember my earlier posting about it, I was indeed nervous then. However, today, as I prepare to depart, the only thing I am nervous about is getting through the checkpoints (Hid I pack everything in the right 3 oz container in the quart plastic baggie? How about my internal hardware setting off the alarms?) Other than those minor things, I am pretty calm. Isn't it interesting how God works?

I remember a story about a king who had commissioned a painting of perfect peace and held a contest among the artists in the area to paint a picture of perfect peace. When the day came and the artists all brought their paintings, there were many paintings of beautiful landscapes of peaceful waters and calm trees. There were many other serene and tranquil ideals of peace depicted in the paintings. However, the artist who won the contest did not paint such a pastoral picture. In his painting there were jagged rocks on a cliff with a roaring waterfall plunging to the white-capped river below. There were angry looking clouds and a buffeting storm swirling all around the sky. The picture seemed to be the opposite of what the king was looking for, it would have been a painting of absolute chaos. But barely to be seen behind the waterfall was a mother bird on the nest with her babies. They were snuggled in warm and dry to their mother and the mother had a look of peace as did the babies.

The moral to that story is that true peace is not the absence of chaos, but peace in the midst of chaos. There have been many occasions in my life where in the midst of chaos and even despair, God has granted me his perfect peace. This is the peace I feel today as I am going over last minute packing lists and the time to leave is getting closer. May God grant you such peace in the chaos of your life as well.