Quiet and Peaceable Life

There was a time in my life when a quiet peaceable life would feel like an utter failure.

My greatest purpose in life was to love Jesus… and fulfill my prophetic destiny, whatever that might be. I felt superior to people who saw the world differently than me or just had a “normal job.” I thought myself more enlightened than the average Christian.

I loved getting prophetic words, especially about my glorious future and all the things I would accomplish. I envisioned myself preaching on stages in front of thousands of people, as one does.

I am thankful my parents showed a more balanced approach to prophetic words. Whenever you’d get one about your future you would ponder it and then put it on a shelf. If it came true great, but don’t plan your life around a single prophetic word. I am incredibly thankful for that lesson.

As my faith matured and I grew up I realized that my life revolved less around prophetic words. I was in the car one day with my parents in Brazil and said someone had given me a prophetic word and prayed for me in the prayer room. I told them, “I didn’t feel anything when she shared it with me”.

My dad’s reply initially disappointed me. He said, “Oh yeah, I hardly ever feel something when someone gives me a prophetic word.”

I loved to feel awesome or inspired when someone prophesied over me. But over the following years, I began to understand my dad’s response. The Christian life is not meant to revolve around the emotional highs of grandiose prophetic words. Our lives have to be grounded in something much more sure, otherwise, we topple over when things don’t go our way.

After returning to the United States in 2019 my walk with God continued to mature. I didn’t know it was maturing. I felt like I was falling away half the time. My spiritual life wasn’t about emotional highs anymore. Even before returning to Kansas City, I become more and more disillusioned with the big and shiny. Smoke machines didn’t move me anymore.

My internal reformation really began in 2021. My parents started house churches and, although originally skeptical, I ended up loving them. I liked the quiet communion.

I started hearing the phrase “quiet and peaceable life” around this time. Something in my soul craved normalcy. I was getting tired of the big and beautiful, and the immense pressure that comes along with it.

The Christian walk is hard, but it’s not supposed to come with pressure to perform or save the world. I can’t save the world, and neither can you, try as we might.

My soul needed normalcy, rest, and communion with God and others. I was tired of the striving, as much as I would have denied it. I talked about rest in Christ but I rarely felt it. In my unconscious mind, I thought I had to read the Bible a certain amount every day, fast weekly, and sit in a prayer room for hours to deserve said rest. But that’s not how it works.

Over the last 4 years, I have embraced contentment, at least in my soul and relationship with Christ. I want to have a normal job, go to church, and have friends. Saving the world sounds exhausting.

I have returned to passages like Matthew 11 and 1 Timothy to help me feel anchored in that truth.

Being “normal” and loving my neighbor is pleasing to God. I don’t need to save the world, be a super saint, a navy seal in the body of Christ, or fulfill a grand prophetic promise to please God. He wants my normal, so I’m gonna give Him my normal. As mundane and unimpressive as it is.

Photo by Claudio Testa on Unsplash