Blessed Are The Peacemakers

There Is Hope With Every Turn There are songs that brush past you once and vanish, and then there are songs that return years later, tapping you gently on the shoulder like an old friend who’s watched the miles roll by. I put on Steve Wariner’s Life’s Highway again the other day, and it stirred something deeper than simple nostalgia. When I first heard it, I was a child who believed the future would arrive like a rescuer. I imagined myself the damsel in a shining story, certain that one day someone would make everything safe and steady in a way home never did. An entire lifetime has unfolded between then and now, yet the melody still feels like yesterday. Ten-year-old me raced through the back alleys of Salt Lake City’s avenues with my sisters, bikes when the tires held air, on foot when they didn’t. We were poor, but summer had a way of making that feel almost irrelevant. Fruit trees hung heavy over fences, and we knew exactly which yards welcomed small thieves and which garage...

  The wise try to adjust themselves to the truth, while fools try to adjust the truth to themselves. — Thibaut "Living in truth may feel like a battle, but it brings you peace." — Unknown Truth Will Cut Its Own Way Scripture is remarkably consistent about one thing: God cannot lie. That statement describes His actual nature. Lectures on Faith teaches that if God could lie, He would cease to be God. Truth constitutes His very being. His words align perfectly with reality. Scripture places lying in stark opposition to this. Satan is called the father of lies because deception forms the substance of his work. Lies function as instruments. They bind, distort and fracture. Denver has described the chains of the adversary as lies "The world is chained by lies" and that image is precise. Lies bind people to false realities, false loyalties and false fears. Because of this, scripture doesn't leave much room for nuance about lying itself. “Wo unto the li...

  This final part of the series is longer and slower. It turns its attention to what comes after formation, not the fire, not the forge but the demanding (and often overlooked) work of carrying what has been shaped. I believe it’s worth the time it asks of you. Part Seven: The Vessel The fire has done its work. The hammering has ceased. The metal rests, warm and altered, no longer raw, no longer molten. Nothing dramatic is happening now. This is the moment most people overlook. After the sparks. After the pressure. After the long season of staying . The forge has formed something, but formation alone is not the end. Strength without containment fractures. Heat without purpose dissipates. Even refined metal must still be shaped into something that can hold, carry and serve without failing. Fire reveals. The forge forms. But something must carry what is formed This is the question that follows every season of refining. After all this heat and hammering, now what? What am I for? Scrip...

  We actually put this together several months ago. It has lived in my drafts being reread, tweaked, rephrased and then politely ignored. From the beginning, we felt genuinely convicted by the Spirit to do this. That part never wavered. What did waver was the timing. We kept revisiting it, asking whether we were waiting on clarity, courage or just divine intervention - preferably in the form of a neon sign that says “POST IT, YOU COWARDS” (The sign never came. Apparently God prefers we use our agency.) What finally pushed us over the edge? The courage of a friend who recently posted something very difficult- something that cost her friendships and she spoke her truth anyway. Watching her bravery reminded us that waiting for the "perfect" moment is often just fear in disguise. So, THANK YOU, brave friend, for lighting the match under our hesitant backsides. Your example was the nudge we needed.  Sometimes the difference between “not yet” and “I’m scared” is thinner than we’d l...

  Part Six: The Forge Where scripture becomes seed, paradox becomes doorway, and story becomes surgery for the soul. Seven weeks. Seven lessons. One nervous system reborn. Opening Scene: The Forge The forge is already awake before the smith arrives. Coals glow low and steady. They aren’t wild or raging, but hot enough to change the nature of what enters them. The air smells of iron and ash. A bellows breathes life into the fire, each pull deepening the heat without letting it run away. A bar of iron is placed into the coals. At first, nothing seems to happen. Then the color shifts. Dull gray turns to red. Red deepens toward orange. The metal doesn’t resist. It yields to the heat because it can’t do otherwise. When the iron is ready, the smith lifts it with tongs and lays it across the anvil. The first strike of the hammer lands clean and loud. Sparks scatter across the floor like brief stars. The sound is rhythmic, intentional. Each blow has a purpose. Too h...