This journal entry is written with the youth of America in mind. Many of you have experienced so much manufactured “faith” that you don’t trust it anymore, but peace with God requires faith… real faith. Many of you do not trust the government, and I don’t blame you. You have been sold a bill of goods most your school-aged life, but if any generation is equipped to recognize real faith when they see it, it is you. This story of peace with God will challenge both manufactured faith and the finite lords of governance. Jesus Christ is the infinite Lord. How do we find peace with God when there are so many counterfeits to contend with? I’ll tell you how I find peace with God. I look for the beautiful phenomenon that is the Lord in my world. He shines forth like a ray of sunlight through His followers who glitter like diamonds. I believe God reveals His Son in the same way as He revealed the burning bush to Moses – in the shining forth of a miraculous object to behold. What will you do when you find the Person of peace with God? Will you watch? Will you listen? Will you take off your shoes in reverence when you realize the ground on which you stand is holy? Will you open up your heart to the seemingly impossible? Will you humble yourself in a posture of complete servitude to the King of kings and Lord of lords? Peace with man is something you make, but peace with God is something you receive.

IN THREE DIRECTIONS The story of Peace is a beautiful one. It is the story of healing. It is the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, His death and resurrection. It is a rescue story that pierces bone and marrow. It is a hero’s story, a marriage story, a loved and lost and found story. What happens to a child who grows up not knowing Jesus? What does that child grow up to become? Lost, wandering, anxious, searching, spinning, quarreling, hating. Conflict is the norm. Chaos is the norm. Disorder is the norm. These are stormy seas and turbulent times. Man is not inherently good. Have you ever walked a dying friend down the Roman Road to salvation? I have. It’s a difficult road to walk when your loved one, who grew up just down the hill attending church, has never owned a Bible, has never sought the Savior, has feared not God but man. Now she sits before me on her death bed blaming God. “I had nothing to confess,” said she to the Priest one week before. “It’s not like I ever killed a person,” her angry heart shot forth. The tears of God I felt, I let wash over me in sorrow, not for judgement or for fright or for anger or for might, but for silent retrospection for this place I know too well. Always spinning, never moving, one step forward two steps back. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) I heard my words say softly. It’s this first most difficult step toward peace on the Roman Road to salvation.

What is the purpose of education, actually? This is a question I’ve been asking for a year. I see no reason why the purpose of education for a Christian should not be the same as God’s first commandment. You shall learn to love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength (Mark 12:30). See what four SoWashCo School Board candidates, who now sit on the board, had to say about the purpose of education when asked last October. Their answers are in quite stark contrast to “learning to know God.” This spiritual duality is easy to identify. It is like a picture of the serpent and the dove from Matthew 10:16, but the duality of political ideology in government remains a mystery to me. It should follow the same pattern as all other dualities of creation – like the left and right brain, the expanding and contracting of muscles, the rise and fall of convection, or the woman and the man of marriage – but this is not so with political ideology. If harmony is to be found in the balance and orbit of two opposing forces drawn together by a central unifying core, then God must have a purpose for the duality of governance in His kingdom. We might think of the political debate like a dance of differences or a game of theatrical nonsense which serves as the most useless thing and the most useful thing simultaneously. Of course, all games require rules, boundaries and referees. The key to a harmonious duo is the core in which it orbits. In the case of civil government, LAW is to be the central animating spirit that pulls these two opposing forces into harmony. Without the rule of law, peace cannot exist.