Peace in the heart of Jesus

We live in a frantic world.  Everything seems to have to be done faster and faster.  Communications are almost instant.  Take the mobile phone: it can be very useful and convenient but it can also be a way that the boss can check up on you any time or your movements can be tracked moment by moment.  E-mail, laptop and palm-top computers and even the “old fashioned” phone can drag us into the spiral of trying to do more things more often and faster.  It’s a bit like the sort of treadmill your pet gerbil uses – lots of feverish activity to get nowhere.  And in the process you can sometimes feel that you are about as important as a gerbil.

All of this is driven by a sort of rage to be better, stronger, richer and more important than the next person.  So if we feel that we have failed in any way, the world just kicks us in the face and writes us off.  That’s why it’s important not to play the game of life that way.  The pressures on us to be proud can lead to a sort of living death.  The message of Jesus is completely different to all this and it shows us the only way to true peace of heart is to be rather more humble.

Firstly, if we recognise that we are not in control of everything – and that we don’t have to be in control – then it will be a lot easier to take Jesus at his word.  “Come to me,” he says, “all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest.”  Surely this means that we can give the problems of life, big and small, safely into his hands?  And yet how often we find ourselves resorting to prayer when all of our own efforts have failed?  Placing ourselves in the hands of Jesus should be the first thing that we do, and we should do it on a daily basis.  After all, Jesus is the centre of creation, not you or me.  He will deal with all the injustice and hardship that we suffer as an ordinary part of living, provided that we are humble enough to trust him.  And we have his promise to encourage us: “Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, or I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”