11-30-2001





























Nod to the Past: Editorially Speaking: "Seek Peace"


Originally Published in 1945

In this season when the angels in heaven are singing about peace, it is but natural that everyone who thinks about Christmas will have his mind directed toward Peace. Some-times I wonder whether people do not regard peace as something that men should sit back and watch for. It is like the sun. It either shines - or does not shine. They regard it as a gift of God, which, indeed, it is, and then take the position that nothing can be done about it. God either gives peace or He does not. There is, of course, something fatalistic about that position. It leaves no room for the act of appropriation through faith on the part of each individual.

Peace may be regarded as some-thing of an achievement. It is some-thing that one gets in response to seeking. It must be striven for. It must be learned. It is not primarily dependent upon the reaction of others to the subject. A man's peace is not dependent upon his health, prosper-ity, fame, or accomplishments. There is nothing in all the external world which can guarantee one such a thing as peace. It is rather an inner attitude of adjustment.

The world has been terribly mal-adjusted due to the entrance of sin. Nothing that God hath joined to-gether seems to be together. The God and man relationship has been dis-rupted. There can be no peace there as long as God and man are not ad-justed. God has arranged the way of redemption, and one enters into the full of it by appropriation through faith. Human beings are badly ad-justed to one another. And as long as that condition of affairs exists, there can be no peace. The law of love of one's neighbor is calculated to bring about proper adjustment and consequently peace. Even this achieve-ment, however, remains a gift of God. Man is out of adjustment with the entire world of which he is a part. And yet God made the world fully adjusted. Sin has disturbed it, and there can be no readjustment with-out the eradication of sin. Here is where the birth of Jesus comes in. But even the work of Jesus does the ground work only, and the perfect adjustment is a work of the Spirit in which each individual is treated as a personal responsible being. That is the reason that we must seek peace.

Seeking peace is a pedagogical process. One must simply learn to look at things differently. If man continues to look upon himself as the center of his world, he has all the ingredients of a peace-less life. If he learns to place God first and to adjust everything toward seeking divine glory, he will be inviting peace to come into his life. Most all, if not all, the great changes in a man's life looked at from the point of view of psychological reaction constitute a tremendous shift of mental appraisal. Repentance itself is essentially a shift of opinion in which what one once called wrong he now calls right. That is also part of the program of peace. One must shift from a selfish warlike mentality to an altruistic peace-seek-ing mentality. Peace, the gift of God, arises in the consciousness of man when he has learned to think differ-ently.

The Psalmist who urges us to seek peace, also urges us to pursue it. It is an elusive sort of a thing. It is al-ways getting away from us. No one can sit down at a given time and say, ``Now, I have got it.'' It is like every other Christian virtue. It can be re-tained only at the cost of constant vigilance. Disruption factors not only, but what is worse, disrupting thoughts are always ready to enter-in when the door is left ajar, ever so little, and to plunge us into the thought world where men are bickering, fighting and searching vainly for peace.

Peace is a great thing. Seek it. Pursue it. Ps. 34:14.

H. S. schultze, President