Peace and Harmony

What causes us not to have peace in our lives. This is a question I have been exploring for several years and recently I got an email from a person that sparked my curiosity even further. As most of you know at times I write about things that are personal to me. Other times I share thoughts and opinions about issues people email me about or current topics in the news. Today will be a combination of both. 

Peace is the elusive pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the quest of the Holy Grail, or mystical fountain of youth. It is the dream place to be yet we never seem to be able to get there. I challenge today if we actually desire peace in our lives or like many other things it is verb we toss around trying to impress others. 

Consider what moves our lives away from peace. The most obvious is the pursuit of money and material possessions. Before I go any further let me just say money is a GOOD thing as are owning nice items. What causes it to create havoc in our lives is when our allure for money and stuff overshadows our desires to have peace, love, and harmony. Success is wonderful and something to be proud of so never mistake my words to mean something they do not. 

If money, power, fame, or stuff puts a wedge between yourself (not so much others), your health, and your spiritual well being you can never be at peace. Each one of us reading this knows of people that have died in the hot pursuit of what they call financial freedom. In most cases that freedom is a bondage that kills from the outside in. Peace is where success resides and thrives. A person at total peace with themselves and their lives can amass wealth beyond their wildest imaginations. I seek that peace in my daily walk in life and I hope you do the same. 

Other areas that remove peace from our lives is the constant flow of negative news. Most people recall during the election that regardless which side won there were groups of people that spelled out doom. This doom talk has been going on in every election since democracy started. I love our free enterprise and the democratic nation in which we live. What I do not like is the barrage of negative talk that stirs hate in the very groups of people we hang with. Being involved and having passion is good but not at the expense of relationships. To have peace and harmony try to put more emphasis on positive in and trust me you will see positive out. Our world is built today on removing trust from each other, I say let's work to restore that trust and the harmony and unity will follow. Remember positive in will create positive out BUT negative in will create negative out. 

I can't discuss peace without talking about our faith and spiritual well being. When we are spiritually out of alignment we start to think the world should revolve around ourselves and our opinions. When we are spiritually in balance and our faith in God and people is growing we learn that together we can bring hope and peace to so many more. The obvious question that has been rattling around in our minds for years is how do we find this balance I speak of. I want to answer this by taking religion out of the equation. Balance starts with a God like love of self and then a trust and belief in others. When we guide our thoughts and actions based on the mistakes people make with total disregard for our own actions we cannot have balance. We are a people of human nature. We make mistakes, we take risk, we ride the edge, sometimes it works and sometimes it fails. Out of balance opportunist thrive on the failure of others. In balance, peace filled, highly successful, and very wealthy people in harmony with their lives pick people up when they are down and help them restore hope. 

Zig Ziglar said it best "to get what you want out of life you must first help enough other people get what they want".

In the Gospels Jesus spoke of helping others often. He spoke of loving, sharing, growing, teaching, and caring. He never speaks of using, abusing, or stealing the hopes and dreams of others. To have peace you must have love. To have genuine agape love means you have hope and hope crosses all socioeconomic lines that have ever been drawn. You want success, wealth, and peace. Learn to love in God like fashion and the passions and lessons of life will start to build around you. 

Peace in every step??? Yes it is possible and the price is cheap however the return is great. You deserve a break today so seek the peace and harmony Christ shared in the Gospels. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

peace to you
Dale