\u201cMay the Lord of \u201cpeace\u201d himself give you peace always in every way. \u00a0The Lord be with all of you\u201d 2 Thessalonians 3:16 CSB
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I love what my Bible dictionary says about the original word \u201cpeace\u201d, \u201cthe opposite of war and dissension.\u201d This particular use of it in this verse is even better; \u201cgospel of peace\u201d meaning \u201cgospel of bliss, meaning it leads to bliss\u201d. How about that for peace? God wants to give you bliss in your life, in every way.
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But what is bliss? What would that look like for you? It\u2019s different for every person. I thought this the other day as I was waiting for my students to show up for a private tennis lesson. It\u2019s a brother and sister who I\u2019ve been teaching for the past year. On this particular afternoon it was hot, sun was beating down and it was obvious they weren\u2019t thrilled about having to hit a tennis ball. As I watched their grumpy faces approach the court, I realized they had probably been fighting with Mom the whole way to the courts. Meanwhile, I\u2019d been there for 15 minutes hoping they didn\u2019t show up because it was so hot and I was tired. None of us wanted to be on the court because of the heat. None of us were feeling blissful.
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But the bliss was in the relationship.
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I love these kids. I admire their Mom that week after week she battles their complaints and gets them to the court. I admire these kids because they don\u2019t ever complain verbally, even though I can see on their faces they aren\u2019t thrilled. I realized as I waited for them yesterday, I was grateful I had this on my calendar, otherwise I would have been sitting studying, not getting any activity. That\u2019s not healthy either. I realized, it\u2019s why we need people in our lives. It gets us out of ourselves, it helps us focus on others. I realized quickly, the three of us needed to make the best of this situation and have some fun. I quickly changed my strategy and turned it into a day of games. We found bliss on a hot tennis court, with the sun beating down on us, a place none of us wanted to be at that moment, we found bliss.
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Isn\u2019t that what bliss is? Making the most of a bad situation. Finding the good in it and focusing on that instead of the bad. Isn\u2019t peace trusting that no matter how hot the sun is, God is with you? He\u2019s in the midst of the battle (Isaiah 41:10). He\u2019s fighting for you, not against you (Romans 8:31 NIV). His love endures forever (1 Chronicles 16:3 NIV).
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I know there are very dark days. I know we all have dark nights of the soul that seem impossible. I know that a hot tennis court seems like a vacation from the heat in your life right now. But I also know this, our God is bigger, our God is brighter. Our God is here to bring the light, the light of the Son into every dark crevice on earth. He\u2019s got the power, He\u2019s got the peace, He\u2019s got the bliss!
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cMay the Lord of \u201cpeace\u201d himself give you peace always in every way. \u00a0The Lord be with all of you\u201d 2 Thessalonians 3:16 CSB I love what my Bible dictionary says about the original word \u201cpeace\u201d, \u201cthe opposite of war and dissension.\u201d This particular use of it in this verse is even better; \u201cgospel of… Continue reading GOD PROMISES YOU PEACE<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","without-featured-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":873,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795\/revisions\/873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}