Welcome to today's encouragement from our daily bread.

My name is Wynne Collier, and I wrote today's piece titled The True Peacemaker.

On December 30th, 1862, the U.S. Civil War raged.

Union and Confederate troops camped 700 yards apart

on opposing sides of Tennessee's Stones River. As they warmed themselves around campfires,

Union soldiers picked up their fiddles and harmonicas and began playing Yankee Doodle. In reply, the Confederate soldiers offered Dixie.

Remarkably, both sides joined for a finale.

Playing home sweet home in unison.

Sworn enemies shared music in the dark night.

Glimmers of an unimagined peace.

The melodic truce was short-lived, however.

The next morning they put down their fiddles and picked up their rifles,

and 24,645 soldiers died.

Our human efforts to create peace inevitably wear thin hostilities cease in one place

only to ignite somewhere else one relational dispute finds harmony only to be embroiled

in distress again months later the scriptures tell us that God is our only trustworthy peacemaker.

Jesus said it plainly in John 1633.

In me, you have peace.

We have peace in Jesus.

While we participate in his peacemaking mission, it's God's reconciliation and renewal that

makes real peace possible.

Christ tells us that we can't escape conflict.

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