By Jonathon Vogel
What is peace functionally? It's more than just a concept or nice feeling. It's spiritual, physical, and hyper-tangible state you arrived to and fight to maintain.
Peace is knowing in every sense that you are doing what you're supposed to do, where you're supposed to do it, and with whom you're supposed to do it with. It is a calm understanding and conviction that you are right where you're supposed to be and pursuing what you're supposed to do next.
Without peace, you strive and grasp and try. With peace you live abundantly despite any pain or suffering. Without peace you're depleted. With peace your cup overflows.
It hit me recently that peace is actually what my job description should be. My job is to bring peace into the world and to help others find peace. My job is the business of peace. I am in the business of peace. And you should be too. Peace that surpasses all understanding and knowing.
What is also relevant is knowing that peace is attainable in your lifetime and it is closer than you think if you're willing to do the work of figuring out your purpose of why you are here and what you are made for.
That restlessness or still small voice within you that keeps saying you're not quite at peace with your current situation means you haven't found it yet. When you find it, it's like figuring out what your dream in life is. If money wasn't an obstacle or if you could have all the right relationships, what would you do with your life? What impact would you make in the world?
Peace is about learning to live within your calling. It's about learning to make a living doing what you're called to do. That gives you peace. That keeps you aligned and full of purpose and meaning. If you break this holy contract with yourself (and God), you are left unfulfilled, frustrated, and can find yourself often in a crisis of meaning and purpose for your life. You sin against yourself, because you know what you should do (or at least what you should be aiming towards if you can't do it right now in the way you feel called to) and you don't do it.
This is not at odds with doing what you need to do right now to pay your bills, provide for your family, etc. In a perfect world, you wouldn't have to take a side journey to do that when your main calling should be the main thing you do. The world's not perfect and nor are we, so we have to do imperfect things even though we're called to do the things that make us perfect and flow out of us perfectly — our calling.