The Lord will mediate between nations and will settle international disputes. They will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will no longer fight against nation, nor train for war anymore.” Isaiah 2:4 NLT
It happened in a peach orchard—simple acts of kindness and mercy became a glimpse of the eternal peace that God promises is coming.
Jim’s great, great grandfather lived at the time of World War I. Grandfather had a peach orchard, and German prisoners of war were brought to work the orchard. The men were despised by the community, but grandfather treated the men with kindness, making sure they had water to drink as they worked under the hot sun.
One day, one of the men gave Jim’s grandfather a gift of gratitude for the kindhearted way he treated them. The man had crafted a beautiful vase from a large mortar shell. It’s a graceful looking piece, fluted at the lip, carved and etched with flowers—a now softly golden piece of art.
One man’s mercy and kindness turned an implement of war into an object of beauty, created to display more beauty. But that vase tells an even bigger story. The Bible says that one day God Himself will “ … mediate between nations and will settle international disputes. They will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will no longer fight against nation, nor train for war anymore” (Isaiah 2:4)
Until that day, God has made a way through one man, His Son, Jesus, for people to know peace … right now. “For Christ himself has brought peace to us,” Scripture says. “ … in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us” (Ephesians 2:14). Until the day when God restores all, Jesus is our peace. His love—available to all who will come to Him, actively destroys barriers between people.
True peace in relationships flows from what God, in His mercy and kindness, has already done.
