I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. – John 16:33

I understand there’s going to be a lot written today in response to the fifteenth anniversary of Nine-Eleven. So I don’t want to clutter up the blogosphere with anything lengthy or irrelevant.

Instead, I’m sharing these few words about the only possible solution we have to a situation that – in many respects – remains an active, ongoing crisis.

Listen to the words of Jesus from John’s account of The Last Supper. ^“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid” (John 14:27).

There has been a lot of purposeful activity since Nine-Eleven, designed to defeat evil and to facilitate peace in this world. Wars have been started, nations occupied, rebellions facilitated, revolutions financed, towns and villages bombed, invasions sanctioned, killings ordered, torture justified, and more….

Revenge and violence leads only to more revenge and violence. Additionally, our attempts at diplomacy have been stymied at every turn. The world has no solution for this.

Let me repeat that statement: The world has no solution for this.

But listen again to Jesus; just a few minutes after he made his “peace not as the world gives” statement, he followed up with this: “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

“Take heart, I have overcome the world.” – Jesus

We can continue to beat our heads against a wall returning evil for evil, violence for violence, and war for war… or we can become the kind of people who follow the Living Way of Jesus; and – if enough of us allow ourselves to be transformed – ultimately the kind of nation…

There is nothing that the Jesus kind of peace cannot heal; nothing the Jesus kind of love cannot overcome. “Take heart! I have overcome the world!”

– DEREK 

(Note: I found the image I used to create the meme using a Google image search; I don’t know who took the photograph)