Peaceful and Quiet Lives


 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and exhorting one another with all wisdom, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, all with grace in your heart to God. And whatever you do in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.  Colossians 3: 16-17

I’ve “grown up” in the faith reading about people like Elizabeth Elliot, Amy Carmichael, and Peter Lord. I always thought that in order to please God, in order to be a good Christian, I had to do something BIG! I lived those early years in fear that God would ask me to send my kids to a mission school so my husband and I could minister on some dangerous foreign field. Not that I was afraid of ministering in danger, I was hopeful of and expecting that, I just didn’t want to be separated from my kids! Time went on and while my husband kept getting to do exciting and dangerous things, I mostly just stayed at home watching over our family. Sometimes it didn’t feel fair. Sometimes I felt relieved.

A while back I encountered a passage in 2 Timothy:

I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people-- for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.  1Ti 2:1-2 NIV

Peaceful and quiet lives. You mean that Paul didn’t want us all to aspire to be shipwrecked and beaten and snake bitten and stoned? It’s actually ok to live peaceful and quiet lives?

The key here is how those lives are lived. Our verses today lay that out quite well. God’s Word is to dwell in us richly. We are to be filled with it to overflowing, so that it comes out of us in the way of teaching and exhorting (urging, encouraging, pushing) with wisdom and singing songs, hymns and spiritual songs with grace in our hearts. The important thing is not whether we are doing something that is perceived as great or small by man, but that all we do in word or deed be done in Jesus’ Name, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. That could be building an orphanage in a jungle or building a peanut butter sandwich for a toddler. Both are necessary. Both are sacred.

Here's the Thing: It’s not what you do, it’s how you do it. When you do something right, that’s what makes it great.

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