Peace in the Front

I'm leaving you well and whole.  

That's my parting gift to you.  

Peace.  

I don't leave you the way you're used to being left - feeling abandoned, bereft.  

So don't be upset. 

 Don't be distraught.

John 14:27  (The Message)

I love this picture, this scene. 

I don't know how it came to look this way - like a mirage - but look this way, it does.  

I think it's a God thing.  

Let me tell you why.

It looks like the world to me.

The world of steel and machines.  Of power lines, and construction.  Of pipes.
Do you see it?  The world of man?

And then, in the foreground, in focus, the trees - green and lush, foliage of summer - and the ocean, God's creation on the third day.  God's world.

And I think about being in this world,  

and how distractingly the world pulls on us and tugs at us, insists on our attention.

And how it threatens, sometimes, to overcome.
Has it threatened you?

But God sent his Son to save the world.

And we were chosen out of the world.

And everyone born of God overcomes the world.
And know this.

Jesus gave us his peace.

So I love this picture.

It puts the world, kind of beautiful in its way, into the background.  

And it focuses on God.

God in Heaven, thank you for the promise of your Kingdom.  

Thank you for your Son, the Prince of Peace.  

Thank you for this reminder of where 

my focus should always stay.

Linking with Still Saturday