Peace, Be Still

Share

I've been thinking a lot about Easter and the Atonement of Christ in preparation for Easter this year for a specific reason. I've been asked to address the congregation at church for Easter Sunday, which will be the first time in almost six years since I spoke in church. One of the images that stuck out in my mind yesterday as I pondered what I could say, what I should say, and what God would have me say seemed like a message to me as much as in times of old. The Disciples, mired in a storm aboard a flimsy boat whilst Christ slept, wake Him and implore Him for help. He rises and commands them as well as the elements, "Peace, Be still." For reasons and in ways I cannot describe in words, I felt like that message was for me. Be still, trust me, and hold your peace, for I, the Savior, will take care of any storms that rage in your life. I am frustrated, and I am upset, and I am hurt, but one of the most important parts of Christ's mission was to bear our griefs and carry our sorrows and take away our pain so that we can know peace, joy, and love. Like most people, I want to change it. I am wise enough to know that I can't do it myself if I can do it at all, and so this message as Christ calms the storms resonated deeply and personally with me.

My hiking buddy called me Friday night to advise me to move. Despite the service my friendship provides, he feels increasingly sure that I will remain single the rest of my life if I don't move out of Vegas. Apparently Thursday he met this fantastic woman who was only here for work but who decided to go hiking on a tough trail at Red Rock before work that day. She kept up despite being someone who lived in London. Now, I would never have met this woman. I have to be at work at 730AM on Thursdays, and I don't live in London, so how would we meet without divine intervention? Part of the prognostication is that other places bring better opportunities. One of the reasons my sister attended graduate school in Utah was on the theory that being around people with likeminded goals and values would lead to increased quantity and quality interactions with members of the opposite sex. It didn't work for her. Instead, she went about her life, followed a vocational opportunity, and is now dating a fine young man seriously with whom she works in Kansas. Now, nobody I know would advise me to go to Kansas, but if it's supposed to happen, it will, even if you make a mistake or go to the wrong place, even if you meet someone in Kansas. More to the point, Jay keeps meeting these people. I don't. The people I meet don't answer the phone, respond to texts, or confess they know me. Most of the people I meet very quickly tell me they already have a boyfriend, and I seem to attract more gay men than straight women. From a strictly actuarial position, I understand Jay's math- the odds are better in a place where I'm no longer average because I'm no longer surrounded by pretentious, prodigious, and pretty people. In Columbus, OH, I am a ten.

Some Polish girls I knew as a missionary in Austria suggested I move. They can tell that I am frustrated in my job because of the GOBNet that runs higher education in Nevada. I am wise enough to realize that any other job in any other place comes with politics of its own, that people will still annoy me, and that I will still not be the best paid because I don't lick boots or dig dirt. Changing location or vocation will only change the way the challenges look. The challenges will remain. They pay you to work because it's difficult, because not everyone can or will do it, and because not everyone will do it as well as you do for that paltry sum. Notwithstanding my frustrations, I told one of the congregational leaders at the beginning of the term that I knew I was supposed to talk to and reach out to a student this semester. God already told me that I will be here as long as there is work for Him to do. I could take another job, perhaps for higher pay, but I would sacrifice the flexibility, the access to young people, the respect of the community, and my gym membership. I could move to another place, but I would lose the few friends I have and everything else. It seems silly to me to throw away everything I have for a chance with no guarantee at things I currently lack.

People who care about me, but chiefly my parents, warn me that I may have hurt myself vocationally by crusading against persons in positions of power. I have confronted government, civic, educational, business, and ecclesiastical persons in this city and state. I have done this because I felt it was the right thing to do, even if it wasn't necessarily good for me. I have trusted that God would look out for me because He has. I keep an Austrian shilling on the bookshelf in the living room at home as a reminder of God's promise that my barrel of meal and cruse of oil shall not fail as long as I do what is right. One month, that was all I had to my name when the next month's deposit arrived. When my first boss at NSHE was replaced in a restructuring, she wrote me that "your courage to speak the truth when you face possible personal ramifications has earned my respect." My current congregational leaders think I'm the best person to address the congregation for Easter Sunday even though I am one of the youngest, even though I am single, even though I have a beard, and even though I speak my mind. A local federal judge finally told me a few years after our verbal altercation that he would be pleased to serve with me any time. I do not back down. I do not dance. Evil men may kill the servants of God, but they cannot stop the message or hide their sins. God has always rescued His people and made them mighty because of their faith unto the power of deliverance. If the time here is ended, He will lead me out of Egypt.

The simple fact of the matter is that God knows exactly where I am, what I'm doing, who I am, and why. He knows this because He directed me here. I confess I don't understand why I live in this house, work for this school, attend this congregation, or live in this time or city. What I do know is that God sends people where they are needed most. During the meridian of time, He sent His Son to Nazareth. He didn't send the Savior to a rich town, a large town, a prosperous town, or an important town. Although Nazareth is symbolic in their culture, it doesn't really rank in terms of other places historically or in the modern era. Like Las Vegas, it was a barren place, both because it was also in the desert as well as because of the people's behavior in the wake of Roman oppression. While there, Christ indeed found good men, doing the best they could, raising good families, and trying to obey the direction of God as well as they understood it. They did not need to live in Rome or Paris or Stockholm or Adelaide or San Francisco in order to matter, and they didn't have to go to those places to serve Him or be part of His story. As a matter of fact, while alive, Christ came to the people Himself. He called them. He found them. He went to them. As I sat and pondered that story, I felt, very strongly, that God wanted me to be at peace and stay still, to stay where I am, doing what I do, and being myself. I have known this for a long time. Things can change. They will when it's time, in His time, when they can, when He wills them to be, when other people choose to be with me, when He brings them into my path. I do not have to look for happiness, a partner for life, prosperity, or peace. Wherever they are, whenever it's right, His blessings will come out of nowhere and enter my life. There are good people and good opportunities here too just like there were in Nazareth, just like my sister found in Kansas. It might be Sin City, but even in Sodom there were a handful of good men. I look for His will and do it wholeheartedly, and the rest will follow when it can.