What Do I Know About Peace?

What Do I Know About Peace?

What Do I Know?: Part 4
November 23, 2025

Psalm 131, 1 Thessalonians 5:1-24

Live in peace with each other.  Brothers and sisters, we urge you to warn those who are disorderly. Comfort the discouraged. Help the weak. Be patient with everyone.  Make sure no one repays a wrong with a wrong, but always pursue the good for each other and everyone else.  Rejoice always.  Pray continually.  Give thanks in every situation because this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.  Don’t suppress the Spirit.  Don’t brush off Spirit-inspired messages, but examine everything carefully and hang on to what is good.  Avoid every kind of evil.

~ 1 Thessalonians 5:13b-22

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As I read Paul’s exhortation to the Thessalonians, it sounds like simple common sense for how to live well together.  Yet these same principles seem almost opposite to the behavior encouraged by many of our political and even religious leaders today.  As a member of a former church once said, Jesus’ teachings on peace and forgiveness just don’t work anymore.  I suspect many of Jesus’ first followers felt the same way.

With that in mind, I asked ChatGPT to reimagine this passage through the lens of what we often hear from our nation’s leaders.  It is intentionally nonpartisan, reflecting values both sides seem to share in practice.  It’s response is telling:

Fellow Americans,

Peace sounds nice, but it’s naïve. Progress is forged through conflict — through proving who’s right, not reconciling with those who are wrong. Disorder keeps us alert; division keeps us strong.

Toughen up. Comfort breeds complacency. Help the weak if you must, but don’t let weakness spread. Patience only delays victory. If someone wrongs you, strike back harder — that’s how respect is earned.

Celebrate your side. Stay outraged. Gratitude is fine when we win, but don’t waste it on your opponents. And as for all that “Spirit” talk — keep your passion, but aim it at those who stand in your way.

We stand united — not in peace, but in purpose. Stay vigilant. Stay angry. Stay divided.

Jesus saw this same spirit in the religious culture of his day.  He wept over Jerusalem saying, “If only you knew the things that make for peace.”  The writing was on the wall.  Destruction was inevitable if they did not change their ways. 

Rome’s peace was powerful, but it came at a high cost, especially for those deemed weak in the eyes of the empire. 

We still struggle with the same temptation, to confuse peace with control, strength and domination.  We confuse love with the ability to protect what’s ours by any means necessary.  But living at peace with all does not mean overpowering or eliminating those we dislike.  It means choosing a different kind of strength, one that risks compassion and empathy.

Paul’s words still challenge us to a different way: comfort the discouraged, help the weak, be patient with everyone, and pursue the good for each other and for all.

What might it look like for us, in our time, to live as people who still believe the things that make for peace?

Pray Always & All Ways

Pray Always & All Ways

Back to School Sunday

August 10, 2025

Matthew 6:5-8, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, Psalm 139

When you pray, don’t pour out a flood of empty words, as the Gentiles do. They think that by saying many words they’ll be heard.  Don’t be like them, because your Father knows what you need before you ask.

Matthew 6:7

Rejoice always.  Pray continually.  Give thanks in every situation because this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

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This week we are focusing on prayer, but not just the typical prayers we pray to ask for God’s help to get through the day. We’re digging deeper into what it means to pray continually, to pray without words, and to cultivate a lifestyle of prayer that will keep us in tune with God’s presence in every moment.

The recorded message above offers some brief reflections on the ways our perspectives and experience of prayer changes through life. These reflections are shorter than usual because we had table conversations about prayer for a portion of our service.

I invite you to listen and then take a look at some of the prayers below that you may want to try on your own.

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The Welcoming Prayer

The Welcoming Prayer is the kind of prayer that is especially helpful when you are feeling triggered throughout the day. Most of our challenges and tempations come from a feeling that our security, our approval, or our control are being threatened. This simple prayer is a way of welcoming whatever emotions / reactions are stirring in us and releasing our need for security, approval and control to God, trusting that God’s grace is sufficient in whatever it is we are facing in that moment.

The Welcoming Prayer

First, Gently become aware of your body and your interior state.
Then pray the following:

Welcome, welcome, welcome.

I welcome everything that comes to me in this moment

because I know it is for my healing.

I welcome all thoughts, feelings, emotions, persons, situations and conditions.

I let go of my desire for security.

I let go of my desire for approval.

I let go of my desire for control.

I let go of my desire to change any situation, condition, person, or myself.

I open to the love and presence of God and the healing action and grace within.

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written by: Mary Mrozowski (925-1993)
The creator and spiritual mother of the welcoming prayer practice

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Breath Prayer

Pray without ceasing. (1 Thessalonians 5:17)

Just as breathing goes on naturally in the body, prayer can go on naturally in our being. Thus we can understand the origin of the name more completely when we recall that in Hebrew the word RUACH has three meanings: “wind,” “breath,” and “Spirit.” Practicing the breath prayer re-grooves/rewires/renews our mind, slowly shaping it into the “mind of Christ” (Phil. 2:5)

Gifts of Breath Prayer

The breath prayer helps us re-groove our brains to be more Christ-like. Practice helps us let go of bad tapes and commentaries thus dismantling what is false within us and awaken what is true and good. Clarity develops. Understanding of scripture deepens. Daily chores go faster while engaged in active prayer. Interior detachment develops. Peace of mind emerges. A deeper awareness of the presence of God is experienced. A deeper bonding to Christ and the human family occurs.

Examples of Classic Breath Prayers

• Lord, come quickly to my rescue. God, make haste to help me.

• Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.

• God, grant me peace.

• Open my heart to your love, Jesus.

• Father God, Thy will be done.

• Lord, hear my prayer.

• Lord Jesus Christ, enter Light. Do not let my darkness speak to me.

• Jesus, abide in me.

• Jesus, keep me simple.

• Holy One, help me.

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Pray All Ways

~ compiled by Dr. Reginal Johnson, author of Your Personality & The Spiritual Life

Although you may occasionally engage in almost all of the practices listed below, I invite you to note which ones most represent your regular pattern. You should also note a few that you may like to try and begin experimenting with them in your regular prayer life.

A Small Sampling of Prayer Practices for Every Personality Type

• read prayers from a book, or from the Psalms, or recite prayers you have memorized

• write your prayers

• follow an outline or pattern in your prayer time

• talk to God, spontaneously, in your own words

• express your feelings to God

• intercede by entering empathetically into the feelings of others and bearing these feelings to God in prayer

• intercede by talking to God about other’s needs.

• intercede silently by visualizing the other person in Christ’s presence.

• intercede for others while looking at their photographs

• intercede for others with the use of a “prayer list”

• spend time just “feeling” the presence of God

• spend time quietly thinking about God

• listen in silence for what God wants to say

• pray a phrase or verse from scripture in order to focus your attention and rest in God’s presence.

• imagine Christ present with you, or visualize yourself as present with Him in some gospel scene, and let that lead into conversational prayer with Christ

• read a passage of scripture and try to allow God to show you how it relates to or applies to your life.

• read from a devotional source which raises your thoughts to God and helps you think about His attributes and qualities and stimulate your worship

• pray over your day’s schedule, offering persons & situations to God in anticipatory prayer, and to seek God’s help in ordering your priorities

• read a selection from a devotional source which relates stories about how real people have experienced God in their circumstances, using it as a “faith lift”

• “daydream” or follow a stream of consciousness in God’s presence allowing it to take you “wherever” as you open yourself to God--all the way from confession of sins, asking for help, or receiving creative ideas

• think about something in a focused way, in God’s presence, perhaps with pen in hand

• use symbols in your place of prayer (for example, a lit candle, open Bible, picture, cross, or worship center of some sort)

• sing, play a musical instrument or listen to music during your time of prayer

• keep a spiritual journal or prayer diary

• set aside time during prayer in order to reflect deliberately over your day, in order to see how God has been (or may have wanted to be) at work

• set aside time for self-examination into your attitudes, actions or thoughts which are hindering your relationship with God

• “practice the presence of God” during the day by frequent interior conversations with God

• find that there are frequent moments through the day when your thoughts turn to God and you are conscious of God’s presence in you

• organize your schedule so that there are fixed times throughout the day when you remind yourself to lift your heart to God in prayer

• “pray with your body” by using posture (kneeling, lying prostrate, etc.),

• use actions (dancing or movement), or gestures (palms opened, arms lifted, etc.), as a means of prayerful expression to God

• sometimes use voluntary denial of an otherwise normal function (eating, watching TV, sweets, etc.) for the sake of spiritual focus and prayer

• walk / jog / play in order to place yourself in the “path” of God who lifts your spirit through the beauty of creation

• listen to audio readings of scripture selections, as you drive, work, or rest

• read / sing from the hymnal or other worship songs in order to drink in the message which comes through the poetic imagery as a means of being with God

There are as many ways to be present with God as there are to be in relationship with a friend. Once you carve out the space for prayer, you have a choice in what you and God do with your time together.

Don’t let your prayer life grow stale. Be Creative!

The hardest part is showing up and being present. Once you are present with God, the possibilities are endless. Enjoy.