On Thursdays we don’t need big challenging thoughts. We need quiet reminders. We need to remember what we believed on Sunday, what we promised on Monday, what we lost track of on Tuesday. We need to sit for a moment, just a moment, and shake off the chaos that was Wednesday and rest.

We can’t rest long. There are only two days left in the week. Which is, of course, a lie we tell ourselves. The week runs all the way to Saturday night. When the next one starts.

It’s enough to make us tear our hair out and run around in circles.

That’s exactly, by the way, what David did one day. I don’t know that it was a Thursday. David was running for his life. He went from Israel over to the Philistines, to the king of Gath. The king’s servants recognized him. David was afraid. He pretended to be insane. It worked. He was tossed out.

And then he wrote a poem about it. Psalm 34. In the middle of it, he offers instruction about what to do when everything is collapsing.

 Come, my children, listen to me;
I will teach you the fear of the LORD.
Whoever of you loves life
and desires to see many good days,
keep your tongue from evil
and your lips from speaking lies.
Turn from evil and do good;
seek peace and pursue it.

See peace and pursue it. Of all the things to do in the middle of a day when every king you know is chasing you, when Saul is throwing spears at you, that’s all he can come up with? Seek peace and pursue it? 

Exactly. Pursuing peace is hard work. It’s not doing nothing. It’s a passionate quest.  It’s life-consuming.

It’s a worthy project for a Thursday.

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First published in February 2012. Still true today.