“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” (Matthew 5:9 CSB)
Devotional
Building a bridge is dangerous, slow work. You’re driving supports into a riverbed nobody can see, over water that doesn’t care if you fall in. Standing on the bank and avoiding the river entirely is a lot safer, and a lot easier to mistake for peace. It isn’t the same thing.
We’re near the end of this series, and here Jesus tells us who we resemble when we do this well. God didn’t keep his distance from a broken, divided world. He stepped into the mess of it and built a bridge out of a cross to reach us. So when we do the same, in our families, our friendships, our churches, we start to look like him.
This is where I have to be careful, because peacemaking gets confused with peacekeeping all the time, and I’ve done plenty of the second one. Staying quiet to avoid an awkward conversation. Letting an issue fester because bringing it up feels riskier than ignoring it. That’s not peace. That’s just postponed conflict with a calmer surface. Real peacemaking means having the hard conversation, listening to someone we disagree with without already planning our rebuttal, and telling the truth even when it costs us something.
It’s uncomfortable work, and Jesus doesn’t pretend otherwise. But he attaches something significant to it. When we do the exhausting, bridge-building work of actual reconciliation, the world looks at us and sees a family resemblance. They see the Father in us, not because we avoided the river, but because we waded into it.
Reflection
Is there a relationship where I’ve been keeping the peace instead of making it? What would it cost me to actually build that bridge instead of avoiding the river? I want to take one honest step toward that today.
Prayer
Father, thank you for making peace with us through Jesus. Give us courage to step into the divisions around us instead of avoiding them. Let people see your family resemblance in how we handle conflict. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Tomorrow we close this series with the hardest promise of all: blessing in the middle of opposition.