Lord, Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace

I don't like conflict. If there's a fight then I'm likely to avoid it at all costs. It's not that I'm a coward, but it is because I am afraid. My legs will literally quake and a black hole seems to open up in the pit of my stomach. All life seems to drain from me. And it's not even if I am in the center of the conflict. If the conflict is in the room, if its raging storm is going after people I love, then I feel the same way.

As a conflict averse person, entering the fray always seemed like a way to just add fuel to the fire. I never want to make things worse. The idea of putting myself on the line was terrifying. The thought of doing so turned my insides upside down. It seemed to shred any sense of peace I had in decidedly non-peaceful situations.

So I would just close my eyes and pretend that the disturbance wasn't there. I would ride the conflict out like a besieged city white knuckles through enemy fighters dropping bombs. I felt like I could somehow rise above the conflict and achieve some sort of peace in the midst of war. Because I love peace. I need it and I want it for others. I self-identified as a peacemaker long before I had ever heard of the enneagram. By being conflict averse, I thought I was choosing peace.

But I wasn't making peace. I just wanted it and those are two separate things.

Because true peace requires a person to enter into the fray. Not to fight or to create more conflict, but one has to face the disturbances in life. Peace doesn't happen if you ignore the problem. And so I am discovering to truly make the peace that I theoretically desire, I have to push my conflict-averse self to the red line. I can't take easy ways out or stick my head in the sand.

There are some things for which you have to stand up. You have to risk conflict, you have to say the things that make the blood drain from your face to achieve actual peace.

And I think of Francis of Assisi praying, "Lord, make me an instrument of your peace." I want to pray that too. Yet an instrument is not an instrument if it lies dormant. If I truly desire to be an instrument of God's peace then I have to work for it. I have to step into conflict even though everything in my body screams for me to run for the hills. 

The work of Francis' prayer* seems all happy and frolicking through the lilies, but it is actually stupid hard work. To sow love where there's hatred, pardon where there is injury, faith where there is doubt, my gosh, to be hopeful when things all around seem like a dumpster fire is an immense challenge. And it seems some days like we are living in a world where it is a constant five-alarm trash-fueled inferno. To console, to understand, to love, to give, and to die to my cherished inner-tranquility is a tough road to walk. And many days, I don't want to do it.

But I need to. I am learning that I need to do this and I want to do this. And I need to remember in the midst of this that I am not actually alone. Frank's prayer is a request. God, make me an instrument of Your peace. It is not totally dependent on me. God does grant courage and, as so often is the case with the things of God, there is usually people by our side to stand alongside us too.

I still don't like conflict, but I'm learning to be a little more brave. I just read in a prayer by Justin McRoberts: "May love be stronger in me / than the fear of the pain / That comes with caring." Lord, make me and make us instruments of Your peace.

*Pretty decent chance Francis didn't actually write this prayer since it doesn't appear from 1912, but I think he would pretty wholeheartedly endorse its sentiment.