Daily Prayer: Choosing Peace in the Ordinary In-Between

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash

"Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord."
— Hebrews 12:14

I was standing at the kitchen counter this morning, stirring my coffee while the dog watched me with that particular expression she gets — the one that says she is absolutely certain I am about to do something interesting. I wasn't. I was just stirring coffee and thinking about a work email I hadn't answered yet.

And somehow, in that unremarkable little moment, this verse came to mind.

Make every effort to live in peace with everyone.

I set my spoon down and thought — okay, that's a lot to ask before I've finished my first cup.

The Effort Part Is the Part I Keep Glossing Over

I've read Hebrews 12:14 many times. I think I've always soft-focused on the word "peace" and quietly skipped past the phrase that comes right before it: make every effort.

That's not passive. That's not "hope it works out." That's active and deliberate, which honestly sounds exhausting — except I don't think it has to be.

I think it looks less like straining and more like choosing. Repeatedly. In small moments that don't feel particularly spiritual.

Like choosing not to send a terse reply to that email. Like genuinely listening when my husband is telling me something I've already half-decided isn't relevant. Like texting my adult daughter just to say I'm thinking about her, not because there's an agenda, but because she matters and I want her to know it.

None of that is dramatic. None of it makes a highlight reel. But it is effort, in the truest sense of the word.

Peace Is a Direction, Not a Destination

I've noticed that peace, in the way this verse describes it, isn't something you arrive at and then get to maintain on autopilot. It's more like a heading on a compass — something you keep orienting toward, even when the road gets a little bumpy or the people around you are being, let's say, fully human.

I work with people. I'm married to a person. I raised a person who is now a whole grown adult with her own opinions about things (many of which are actually quite good, though I'll never fully get over the fact that she doesn't like pie). People are a lot.

And I love that. Mostly. On a good day, entirely.

But "making every effort" toward peace means I have to show up with intention even when I'd rather just retreat to my book and a blanket and pretend the world is manageable from a distance. Which is, in full transparency, my default setting.

And Then There's the Holiness Part

The second half of the verse is the part that makes me stand up a little straighter.

Without holiness no one will see the Lord.

Holiness sounds like a big, formal word. It sounds like cathedrals and robes and people who are much more put-together than I am on any given Wednesday with a full inbox and a dog who has decided the backyard needs emergency investigation at 6 a.m.

But I think holiness is also just — being set apart in the ordinary sense. Choosing differently. Living like something eternal matters, even when everything around me is extremely, stubbornly temporal.

It's not about being perfect. I think God knows better than to wait on that from me.

It's about orientation, again. Turning my face toward Him in the middle of the regular day and letting that change how I move through it.

What This Looks Like for Me Right Now

I'm in a season of life that feels genuinely good. Not without its complications, but good in the way that a well-worn routine feels good — comfortable and mine and full of people I actually want to be around.

My marriage is steady. My daughter is thriving in her own life, which is the thing you hope for and also the thing that requires a quiet recalibration of your role. Work is meaningful. The dog continues to find everything fascinating.

And inside all of that goodness, this verse feels less like a challenge and more like an invitation.

An invitation to not sleepwalk through the peace I've already been given. To tend it. To actively pursue it with the people in my life — not because conflict is lurking, but because good things still need attention to stay good.

And to keep asking God to make me a little more holy, a little more set apart, a little more like someone whose life actually reflects what she says she believes — even if the only witness is a very attentive golden retriever.

A Prayer for Today

Lord, I want to mean this verse today and not just read it. Help me actually make the effort — the small, unglamorous, repeated kind of effort — toward peace. With the people I live with, the people I work with, and honestly, the ones who are a little harder to love on any given day.

And the holiness part — I know I can't manufacture that on my own. I need You in it. I need You to keep shaping the parts of me that still default to self-protection or impatience or just plain distraction.

I want to live in a way that points toward You. Not in a performance, just — genuinely. Quietly. In the ordinary places.

Thank You for today. For the coffee and the dog and the people I get to do life with. I don't take any of it for granted.

Amen.

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