Pace of Peace

Something I have been learning here in Swaziland is the pace of peace. Life moves more slowly here. People take their time with the day itself. It is such a contrast to life in America where we rush from one thing to the next and never pause to breathe.

Here everything feels more intentional. Life is lived one step at a time. I am learning that slowing down does not mean falling behind it means being present enough to actually notice where you are.

We need to remember to stop and see the flowers on the side of the road. It reminds me of a line from Fahrenheit 451:

“I sometimes think drivers don’t know what grass is, or flowers, because they never see them slowly. If you showed a driver a green blur, oh yes! he’d say, that’s grass! A pink blur? That’s a rose garden! White blurs are houses. Brown blurs are cows.”

The pace of peace is found in the rhythm, in moving slowly enough to see the colors, not just the blur.

But I am also learning that peace is not just about moving slowly, it is about where our hearts rest. Peace does not come from everything around us being calm, it comes from trusting the One who never changes, even when everything else does. 

Isaiah 26:3 "You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you,” reminds us that God Himself keeps us in peace when our minds stay fixed on Him. Chaos may come and uncertainty may too, but when our hearts rest in who God is, faithful, sovereign, and good, we find that perfect peace is not the absence of trouble,  it is knowing who holds us through it.