Stable peace—the goal of civilized living. How the world tries through organized effort to establish peace! Yet, strangely enough, these attempts to achieve concord are made more often than not through the opposites of peace: strife and conflict. Happily, however, the right method for the attainment of stable peace is available. It is stated and illustrated repeatedly in the Scriptures. "Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them," sang the Psalmist (Ps. 119:165), declaring in this one statement the basis of peace, the method of its attainment, and the fruitage of that right method. And later, Christ Jesus said (John 14:27), "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you."
Peace, humanly conceived, is a relative experience. Such peace is prone to fluctuate according to prevailing human conditions. Based upon the belief in the reality of human and material conditions and the apparent power of these conditions to define and determine the presence or absence of peace, it is as unstable as the collective circumstances determining it. It is likely to be, in the words of the Bible (Jer. 6:14), "Peace, peace; when there is no peace."
Genuine peace is spiritual. Jesus clearly said that peace is not of the world. Unlike the unstable peace resulting from the divisible, material concept of existence, the peace which stems from the indivisible nature of God, divine Principle, is wholly stable.
