For years, I was baffled about why we have two political
parties (in addition to a few smaller ones) that can’t seem to agree on
anything. It seems like in congressional vote after congressional vote, the
majority of people in the Republican Party vote one way and the majority of people
in the Democratic Party vote the other. In Presidential elections, the majority
of people who claim to be Republican vote Republican and the majority of people
who claim to be Democrat vote Democrat.
I often wondered what would happen if we were somehow able
to split this country in two by separating out the Democrats into one country
and the Republicans into the other. Would our disagreements be extinguished?
Would the people in each country actually be able to live at peace with one
another?
Then I began to recognize that the divisiveness of this
country isn’t merely drawn on political party lines; our divisiveness runs a
whole lot deeper than that. We are divided over race, gender, social class, and
athletic teams, just to name a few of the prominent ones. Could we apply my
plan to separate people out further and further until we reach a point at which
every little subgrouping could live at peace with one another? For example, let
say we took all the Caucasian, male, upper class, Buckeye, Republicans and put
them in a country together. Would they be able to live at peace with one
another? They’d have so much in common; how could they possibly be divided?
You and me and everyone else I know would love to live in a
world where we could cut the divisiveness and live at peace with one another.
But is peace attainable? And if it is, how do we get there?
What Would a Peaceful World Look Like?
Here’s my vision of what a peaceful world would look like.
It’s a world where there aren’t any wars; a world where there’s no crime; a
world where there’s no threat of terrorism. We could go about our days without
fear that someone is trying to hurt or even kill us.
It’s a world where diverse people get along with one
another. The diversity of people on this planet is a great asset to humanity.
It would be a place where no one person or group of people are valued more than
others based upon one of their characteristics or merits, but a place where
everyone’s characteristics and merits are valued equally.
It’s a world where the thought of competing against one
another to see who’s the best doesn’t even cross our minds; it’s a world where
decisions are reached by consensus; it’s a world where the love we all have for
one another outshines both our differences and our insistence on getting our
own way.
What’s your vision of a peaceful world? Would you add or
subtract anything from mine?
On the whole, we probably all have pretty similar visions of
what a peaceful world would look like. So why haven’t we attained it? Why
haven’t we reached a point where we are all living at peace with one another?
Can We Attain Peace?
As many of you reading this article know, my go-to authority
for dealing with life is the Bible. I have yet to find a life struggle I’m
facing that isn’t addressed in the Bible in some way. If you’d like a
challenge, I encourage you to come up with a life topic that’s not somehow
addressed in the Bible and then send it my way. I’m more than willing to take
you up on the challenge.
Let’s take a look at the Bible to see what we can find in
there relating to peace and division.
According to Paul, the writer of Galatians, one of the
fruits of the Spirit is peace and one of the fruits of the flesh is division.[1]
What does he mean by fruit? A common metaphor used throughout the Bible when
referring to people is that they are plants. All healthy plants bear fruit. An
apple tree bears apples while a pear tree bears pears. You wouldn’t expect an
apple tree to bear pears or a pear tree to bear apples. In the same way, the
biblical writers claim that people who are truly disciples of Jesus will bear a
certain kind of fruit, the fruit of the Spirit, while people who aren’t
disciples of Jesus will bear a different kind of fruit, the fruit of the flesh.
According to the Bible, when God first created human beings,
they were made as trees which bore fruit of the Spirit. But when they sinned
against God, their trees were transformed into trees which only bore fruit of
the flesh. The bad seeds were passed along to their children and their
children’s children and so on.
After “the fall,” it didn’t take humans long to begin
creating divisions amongst themselves. In the second generation of humans, when
there were only a small handful of people on the earth, one of them was a farmer
and another was a shepherd. The farmer got angry because his brother, the
shepherd, seemed to have more favor with God than him. So he rose up against
his brother and killed him.
Humanity has a long history dating all the way back to the
first humans to walk on the face of the earth of divisiveness amongst one
another rather than peace. Certainly there have been times throughout history
when peace was attained to some degree or another amongst large groups of
people, but it only lasted as long as these groups had a common enemy, an enemy
with whom they were not at peace. At no time in history has the entire world
been able to experience peace, even for a second.
Is world-wide peace attainable? Only if the fruit of the
flesh and its passions are completely destroyed and replaced with the fruit of
the Spirit. As long as there is sin and sinners on the earth, we’re going to
experience divisions.
How about amongst the small groupings of people I once
proposed putting together that had so much in common? Would they be able to
experience peace, even amongst themselves? I don’t think so. I think they’d
find something over which to divide themselves.
To be super blunt, I have absolutely no hope in humans to
attain peace amongst ourselves. We’d have to rid ourselves of all pride and
egotism to make it happen. Good luck with that one!
But I still hold out hope for both seeing and experiencing
the type of peace I envision.
Where Can Peace Be Found?
How could I possibly have hope for seeing and experiencing
peace if I’ve concluded that world-wide peace is unattainable? Great question!
I’m glad you asked.
If peace is a fruit of the Spirit, then a place full of the
Spirit and devoid of the flesh would be a place where peace is attainable. Is
there such a place? Yes, there is: heaven, the place where God dwells. I hold
out hope for finding peace with God.
But that’s not the end of the story. I also believe that
since the Holy Spirit is in the process of transforming our hearts, I can find
peace with some people while I’m here on the earth. This peace will not be found
in community with people who share a common enemy, but will be found in
community with people who share a common hope: a hope in Jesus. It’s here that
our love for one another, a love which comes from God, will be so powerful that
it outshines all the little things over which we could be divided. It’s here
where we will get a chance to catch a glimpse of the everlasting peace we will one
day experience when we are finally able to be with God for the rest of
eternity.
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