Our Personal Prince of Peace

As I reflect on a talk given at a recent Genesis Group devotional, I'm struck by its profound message about one of Christs’ titles, the Prince of Peace. This title is not just powerful and promising, but deeply personal. Jesus is not only the Prince of Peace in a global or eternal sense; He is our Personal Prince of Peace. From His very first moments, He was transforming chaos into calm.

The Genesis Group speaker imagined Mary, a young mother surrounded by the unfamiliar and the uncertain. Amid disrupted plans and urgent needs, there must have been a measure of confusion and fear. The stable wasn't a clean, serene space, but likely a chaotic, crowded area filled with animals and perhaps strangers. Yet in that moment of potential fear and confusion, Jesus' presence must have brought profound peace. It’s possible that His first miracle was the quiet act of bringing tranquility to that turbulent moment. The Prince of Peace was already at work.

We’ve all experienced the peace that a baby brings as it’s held in careful arms and against a softened shoulder. I can only imagine the peace the Christ child must have brought to the space He was born into—already calming the storms, not just around Him, but in His people’s hearts.

In fact, true peace can only be found in Christ. He offers us the same peace He brought to that manger—a peace that quiets our fears and calms our troubled hearts. Peace isn't always about improved circumstances or the absence of struggle, but about an inner stillness that defies explanation. When we invite it, this same peace finds us in our own moments of uncertainty and fear.

The Genesis Group speaker beautifully illustrated this point by reflecting on a moment years later in Jesus’ life. Taken before Caiaphas, facing those wrongly accusing Him in a rushed, tense trial, and anticipating a certain, cruel death, He "held His peace.” Perhaps this was more than simply keeping quiet. It may have been a deep, unshakable calm granted to Him in His hour of need. If so, it exemplifies the inner peace that He, in turn, offers us. A peace that transcends circumstances.

It’s a peace that is at once accessible and beyond our understanding. It’s a peace that is offered to me. To you. Not as a distant concept, but as a living, breathing reality today. It holds us steady when fear and confusion and loss threaten to overwhelm. It whispers, "Even here, even now, you’re okay."

This Christmas, may we know our Personal Prince of Peace—not just as a title, but as a personal invitation to rest, to breathe, to find calm in the midst of our stories. It’s His gift to us.

John 14:27 “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you... Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”

Strength and Honor

This past week I was sitting in church and reflecting on the emotional wounds and financial stresses of being laid off at the end of September and still waiting for my first paycheck to come while the bills pile up, I realize I have been resorting to less prayer and seeking distractions in food, hours of binge watching media, and feeling resentment.

I was recently beset by feelings of failure and fatigue of the battle, when I stretched out my right hand and my Bootcamp bracelet slipped out from under my shirt cuff. At the end of each camp we are given a thin black bracelet, on one side it says “Strength and Honor,” and on the other it says “I am a Warrior.”

I don’t write much poetry, but these thoughts came to mind::

I am a Warrior!
But I haven’t been battling
War tested, but lately confused

I am a Warrior!
At times forgetting
The test of a man is in how I am used

I am a Warrior!
Knighted in brotherhood
Redeemed from my sin and abuse

I am a Warrior!
Strength and Honor
My war cry of truth!

I am a Warrior!
Redeemed and remembering
The battle is won when I stand up with you!

And it hit me that I was trying to do battle by myself against myself again. As I’ve reached out more this week for the strength and love of brotherhood and connection, it has come back into my life and reminded me that God loves me and is always there for me.

Be a Warrior! The battle exists whether we pick up our swords and shields or sit on the side lines getting beaten and worn.

By Pete, Writing Team

A Door With Two Locks

I’ve attended addiction recovery programs for several years now, and while there are many consistent themes in each man’s story, each is also unique. Some come to recovery for the first time while still a teenager, some after having had a child or two, and some well into their retirement. Some experience a miraculous change of heart and stop acting out all at once, some have a gradual improvement over the years, and some continue to struggle for the rest of their lives. Even in the same person, not every addiction plays out the same way.

That’s the case for me. After twenty years in a pornography addiction, I finally shone a light on my shame and started to really work on my recovery. Instantaneously, pornography took a backseat in my life. Yes, there continues to be daily temptation and surrender, and at one point I had two brief relapses, but this area of my life has felt permanently different from what it used to be.

But my addiction to food? That’s a fight I’m fighting just as hard as ever, with almost no changes from before and after I began my recovery journey. I might just recently be starting to see some progress on this front, but if so, it has been a much longer and more varied path than the one to sexual sobriety.

There are a series of questions, all the same at their core, that I have repeatedly asked when trying to make sense of how I could succeed in one arena, yet persistently fail in another. What am I missing? Am I not surrendering correctly? Am I not trying hard enough? Is there a childhood trauma I still need to uncover? What do I need to do?!

Well, I’ve come to realize that these questions may have already received their answer 2000 years ago in a story of Jesus and his disciples.

And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?
Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.
And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.
John 9:2-3, 7

There was nothing that any person had to change to make this man able to see. He was, apparently, already worthy of being healed. All that the man needed was for the time to be right that “the works of God should be made manifest in him.”

I like to think of sobriety as a door with two locks on it. We have one of the keys, and we turn it by being willing to be changed, no matter the personal cost. Once we turn our lock, that’s great! We have done our part. The door still won’t open until the Lord turns His, though, and sometimes He doesn’t do that just as soon as we’ve turned ours.

On the other hand, it’s entirely possible for things to work the opposite way. God might have already turned His key, but we’re just not being honest about whether or not we’ve turned our own.

This was the case for me with pornography. I genuinely believe that the reason I experienced such an immediate improvement once I started recovery was because God had already been ready to heal me for years, but I hadn’t been ready to be healed. For more than a decade my conscience kept telling me the same thing over and over: You have to tell someone about this. You have to make a confession. You have to stop living a lie….You have to turn your key. And for years I kept refusing, even while continuing to pray for deliverance.

Jesus was already telling me, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam,” and I was saying, “How about another option?”

When I finally stopped trying to find another way, made my confession, and turned the key to my lock, the door swung right open.

So now I have to take a hard and honest look at my addiction to food, and see in my heart what the situation is there. Am I sincerely ready to be healed? Am I just waiting for the works of God to be made manifest in me? Or, is God already waiting to heal me, and I’m just ignoring the step He’s laid out for me?

Whether God is telling me what action I must take to receive His healing, or He is telling me to just wait, I have an instruction that requires faith and humble submission. And then, if I do faithfully submit, it will all lead to healing in the end.

By Abe, Writing Team