What Manner of Man:

Peace
By Linda and Richard Eyre

Note: Each week this column provides a short essay on one particular aspect or facet of the Lord’s personality and character.  It is intended that the reader focus on this facet while partaking of the sacrament this Sunday.  (Click here to read full introductory column.) Review previous columns by going to the What Manner of Man Archives by clicking in the margin to the right.

Picture the Savior at the seaside of Galilee, sitting alone, His finger tracing the sand, His ear aware of the small lapping waves, His ear aware of the small lapping waves, His eye reflecting the peace around him (and in him).

Key words in the promises He made to men were rest, easy, light and peace. His most common greeting (or farewell) was “peace be with you” (John 14:27).

In our own dispensation, one of His greatest promises is that those who serve Him will know “the peaceable things.which bringeth joy, that which bringeth life eternal.”

The feeling of the Holy Ghost is often best described as peaceful ? a soft, sure, warm knowing. Indeed that Spirit ? in our prayers, in church, during the sacrament ? may be our most powerful witness of Christ’s spirit and the deepest insight into His personality of wonderful calmness and peace.  

In physical things as well as in personality things, there is an interesting connection between peace and depth. The lower reaches of a great sea are always calm, even while a tempest rages on its surface.

One source of the Lord’s abiding peace was the tremendous depth of His character. When Christ taught something, the thought was so complete, so perfectly formed, that it was like a bubble that began deep in the still depths of His soul and then rose through the calm, gaining clarity and sparkle as it ascended until it burst brightly to the surface with power and perfect beauty.

Most of us, at one time or another, have met a person so at peace with himself that he calmed us: one whose spirit quieted our spirit. Anyone who has felt that has liked it, and has wished for it again. As we draw close to Christ and to the Father, as we come to know them, we will understand the source of that peace, and that peace will be ours.


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