Original Peace

A Reflection on the Psalm for August 9th, 2020:
Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

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Psalm 85

R. Show us your steadfast love, O Lord, and grant us your salvation.

Let me hear what God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace to his people. Surely his salvation is at hand for those who fear him, that his glory may dwell in our land. 

R. Show us your steadfast love, O Lord, and grant us your salvation.

Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other. Faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky. 

R. Show us your steadfast love, O Lord, and grant us your salvation.

The Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase. Righteousness will go before him, and will make a path for his steps. 

R. Show us your steadfast love, O Lord, and grant us your salvation.
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Pause. Pray.

And then read more...

Being personally afflicted by different kinds of abuses in my life, many lies have been spoken over me. Many of those lies have also settled within me. And at times, I have allowed those lies to become a part of me. Without dramatizing the circumstances, abuse, for the purpose of the point I am trying to make here, is simply the misuse of another—the improper use of someone. Within this definition, I know I have abused others too—both knowingly, and unintentionally. It is far too easy to stray onto this path.


In any relational conflict, what I feel is instability. This instability causes me to question—to question myself, others, the truth. My footing becomes doddery, rather than rooted. It feels as though I’m standing on loose ground, tottering along a steep slope. The instability finds its origin in misuse: either my misuse of another, or their misuse of me. The reason I feel so unstable in these circumstances is because deep within me, at my very core, a signal is trying to beam through the darkness to alert me to the wrong being done. Unfortunately, in the chaos of conflict, and the busyness I lend myself to, the signal often gets lost—lost amidst the clouds of uncertainty looming within my heart and mind. I can even come to adapt over time to new normals when consistently exposed to abuse. Particularly when lies are spoken over me by more than one person. It then becomes even easier to claim my new identity: I am who they say I am.


But it’s not true.


None of it is true.


We are made by Love, for Love—and Love infuses peace—not instability. The Signal beaming out from within is one who provides truth and peace, and He is steadfast.


In my Bible, Psalm 85 is titled, “Prayer for the Restoration of God’s Favour”. He created us, and so it is only He who can fully restore us. He can restore us to His favour. God’s favour, or grace, is God giving us the ability to do something which is humanly impossible for us to do (christianity.com). For our human efforts, we will access self-help and psychology, and these things are good. But ultimately, a replacement for the aspects of human love lost is essential. Because as the space inside, once inhabited by lies and instability, is vacated, we will naturally look to fill it with something or someone else. So, the cycle can either continue, or we can sit in prayer and plead, “Let me hear what God the Lord will speak”—a prayer to be restored to stability in our original relationship of love, faithfulness, and peace.


Let us Pray:

In Your quiet presence, Lord, fill me with the assurance of Your peace, and the truth of Your Love. In Your eyes, I see who You created me to be and I can rest.




Lori MacDonald

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