Romans - The Path of Peace

Read Romans 3

Today's Devotion -- Romans 3:15-17
15"Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16ruin and misery mark their ways, 17and the way of peace they do not know." (NIV)

taken from www.biblegateway.com

This is part of a passage of several Bible references that Paul uses to show that all are sinners, whether they are under the law or not. These particular verses come from Isaiah 59, which talks about God's ability to hear and save the Israelites regardless of where they are or the trouble they are in. And of course it refers equally to our lives today.

I don't think my feet are swift to shed blood, but there are definitely times when I do not know the way of peace! It's amazing how peaceful things can be in the morning. I get up, help my teen get off to school, then sit down for an hour of so when I can spend my quiet time with God. I'm encouraged and plan a day full of calm responses to problems as I vow to lean on Him regardless of the situation. Today I'd been thinking about how to write a devotion about staying on the path to peace.

Then our twin 8-year old boys wake up. One of them almost always wakes up grumpy. Today he went into a tyrade because he couldn't find his white uniform shirt. As usual, it was clean and in the laundry basket, but that wasn't where he wanted it to be. He cried and got angry, mumbling things under his breath. He hollered "why don't you ever put them away?"

Well, I could go into lots of explanations about how the shirts I get for him were out of stock, so we only have two that have to get washed frequently until I can buy more. I could have simply apologized and gone downstairs to get it for him. Instead I jumped right off that path of peace and maturely retorted, "why don't you put them away yourself?" After all, he's big enough!

Luckily God gently grabbed my by the neck and pushed me back onto that path of peace. I realized that he's 8 and he's always grumpy in the morning. My grumpy responses aren't going to help the situation. I told him I'd get the shirt, brought both of them up and put the second one where he will find it in the morning (maybe...). In the meantime he was yelling at his brother to get out of the room (the brother wakes up cheerful...and was only trying to change his clothes). I herded the brother (whose feelings were now hurt) out to go eat his breakfast, reminding him to stay away from grumpy until he was happier.

With a few minutes of quiet time, grumpy came out of the room all ready for the day and he stood in front of the mirror for about five minutes fixing his hair (I get a kick out of watching little boys primp!). Grumpiness has passed and he's now eating breakfast, laughing about some silly word his brother said.

I have a choice. I can continue to steam about his behavior and beat myself up for not putting the clothes away, or I can laugh it off as God's timely example for today's lesson.

How often do I let other people or situations pull me off the peaceful path God wants me to travel? And once off, how long do I stay on that other path (be it anger, frustration, insecurity, or selfishness)? I will probably always be involved in situations that try to steal my peace, and I'll most likely run right off that path with a human response. Hopefully, as I mature in Christ, I'll have less triggers that set me off and once they do I'll spend much less time exploring those non-peaceful paths!

Ok - I'm firmly on that path of peace...until the next incident occurs?