Living at Peace While Living in War, Part 1

Today marks one year since the heinous attack on Israel by Hamas and one year of increasing horrors levied against the Palestinian people by Israel. In many ways life has gone on as usual where we live in West Bank, but in other ways life is anything but normal.

As I cook a filling, nutritious meal, embrace my husband, or watch my daughter’s carefree play, I find my thoughts drifting to those who are barely managing to find something to eat, who don’t know whether they will ever embrace their kidnapped loved ones again, or who have experienced more paralyzing trauma as a child than most people experience in a full lifetime. As I go to sleep in a warm bed in an intact house, I think of those whose houses have been demolished, bombed, or made otherwise unlivable, who are living in tents while trying to find sustenance and make it out of this war alive, albeit never the same.

The horrible manner of deaths we hear of, even of some whom we know, the life-altering injuries, the humiliation and abuse, the current unthinkable standard of living that so very many people are enduring are enough to make my chest and throat tighten and my eyes spill over with tears if I think about it all long enough. We pray for the suffering to stop, for the war to end, for the oppression and violence (that this war is the latest expression of) to cease. And yet, even praying can be exhausting because it requires thinking of all these horrors over and over again.

As the burden has become increasingly heavy over the last year, I have found myself wrestling with how (i.e., in what way) I am to live my days as a follower of Jesus in the face of such darkness. How do I remain steadfast in prayer when the weight is so heavy? How do I display the goodness of God to our community when the circumstances around us seem anything but good? How do I love our enemies? How do I pray for those who persecute us? How do I graciously respond to those who are uninformed? How do I live at peace while living in war?

Finding how to balance carrying both lament over the ugliness of evil and enjoyment of the beauties that are still graciously present in our lives has been a daily journey. To try to embrace only one posture is unthinkable. I can’t simply relish in the comforts of my life and ignore the immense suffering that is so close, both geographically and relationally. But neither can I live my days bent over in paralyzing grief, frustration, and despair and refuse to accept and delight in the blessings I’ve been given. So what does it look like to carry both?

As has happened so many times before, God has shown Himself faithful through His perfect timing, the riches of His Word, and the wisdom of His children. Earlier this year, we began studying the book of Daniel in the life group that my husband and I lead at our church. Last month, just as I was in the midst of a peak of the above-mentioned struggle, we came to chapters 7-9. These are among the most daunting chapters to teach in all the Bible, and yet I am so glad we were led to press in and study them at this specific time.

Right in the middle of these three chapters, at the end of chapter 8, Daniel interrupts his recounting of the visions with a note about how they affected him: “And I, Daniel, was overcome and lay sick for some days. Then I rose and went about the king's business, but I was appalled by the vision and did not understand it” (Daniel 8:27, ESV). Perhaps fittingly, I too became sick the week we were studying this passage, and we joked that the information had the same effect on me as it had on Daniel. But it wasn’t just physical sickness that made me see a connection between Daniel and myself.

Daniel L. Akin’s commentary on these verses resonated with me deeply. He writes, “What Daniel saw and took in wiped him out. It was personally overpowering. […] He is completely undone by the vision of chapter 8. It was more than he could bear.”[i] Similarly, what I have seen and taken in, not in a vision of the future but in present reality, is at times overpowering and more than I can bear (and yet still nothing compared to what others have actually experienced, which knowledge is even more overwhelming.)

But Akin continues, “He was comforted by the reality that God was in control and that his kingdom would eventually come (v. 25b), but to know that there would be so much evil in the world and so much suffering for God’s people before it arrived was overwhelming. It was too much, at least for a while.”[ii] And, I too, find comfort in the knowledge of God’s control and that His kingdom has come in part and will eventually come in full even as I, too, find it overwhelming to see such evil now in the world and so much suffering for God’s creatures and His redeemed.

The commentary continues, “Daniel’s sickness passed. God’s grace was sufficient. Regaining his strength, God’s prophet got up and went back to work as he normally would […]. Sinclair Ferguson says it well: ‘He returned to the duties to which God had called him. He did not retire from the world in view of the evil days that were coming. Nor did he go to the opposite extreme and live on a “high” visionary excitement. Instead he did his duty.’”[iii] Daniel embodied the duality of feeling overwhelmed at suffering and yet continuing his daily responsibilities in the strength of God. Even when he didn’t understand, he got up and got to work.

Akin again quotes Ferguson, saying, “‘How then should we live? Passage after passage gives the same answer: Do the King’s business; walk in obedience; live in holiness; purify yourself as He is pure,’” before concluding on his own, “The vision ‘greatly disturbed’ [Daniel] and he ‘could not understand it.’ Nevertheless, Daniel did not let it paralyze him. He did his job, and he trusted in his God. He is an example to all of us.”[iv] And how thankful for that example I am.

How comforting it is to be reminded that living in this tension is not unique to me and to see how a saint who has gone before me handled going about daily life while holding the knowledge of overwhelming terrors. It is okay to be overwhelmed. It is okay to not understand everything. It is okay if there are days when performing my various duties seems hard in the face of so much evil—because God’s grace is sufficient, and His power can shine through in my weakness (2 Cor. 12:9).

As Gloria Furman says, “Because Christ burst through the de-creating cords of death and into eternal, resurrection life, suffering is not the end of our story.”[v] And I can cling to that truth even as suffering literally surrounds me. I can rely on His strength when I don’t understand, when I feel overcome, and remember that He has given abundant life to me and all who will follow Him.

So while I still don’t have all the answers, I have a renewed sense of peace that I can depend on God the Spirit to guide and strengthen me, on God the Son to intercede for me, and on God the Father to be patient and gracious with me as I seek to be obedient to my calling to make Him known and bring Him glory in my home, my church, my community, my region, and my world. And until the day when He destroys evil once and for all, I can keep on keeping on, keep on showing His love, and keep on sharing the good news that the Prince of Peace is alive and well and offers something so much better than anything this world could ever offer.

PC: Bobbie Roberts Kyle. Used with permission.

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[i] Daniel L. Akin, Christ-centered Exposition: Exalting Jesus in Daniel (Nashville: Holman Reference, 2017), 104.

[ii] Ibid., 104-105.

[iii] Ibid., 105.

[iv] Ibid.

[v] Gloria Furman, Missional Motherhood: The Everyday Ministry of Motherhood in the Grand Plan of God (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2016), 131.