God desires his children to experience his peace. This doesn’t mean we won’t ever have serious concerns or be tempted to be anxious. It doesn’t mean we will always feel peace. But as we fight the good fight of faith, we will increasingly experience the deep peace of God.
Life in this world is really hard.
Sometimes excruciatingly hard. And when we believe in Jesus and call upon him to save us, it doesn’t mean our troubles will end. God will definitely deliver us from evil, and spare us from all kinds of pain we would bring upon ourselves by sin apart from him, but he tells us in his word that we will suffer, and we shouldn’t be shocked when we do. For example he says:
Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 1 PE 4:12
In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 1 PE 1:6
But God gives us many promises we can cling to in hard times, and gives us a number of things we can do to experience his peace. I’m not saying these are all easy to do. We must fight the good fight of faith. We must battle to continue to believe God’s word and trust him. But when we fight this fight, God will be faithful to fill our hearts with his peace.
Keep your mind stayed on God, not your circumstances
You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. IS 26.3
The temptation in any situation is to take your eyes off the Lord and focus on our circumstances. As long as Peter kept eyes on Jesus, he walked on the water. But when he got distracted, and began to look at the wind and the waves, he began to sink. One of the greatest challenges in affliction is to trust God and not focus on our situation. And when we trust our heavenly Father, he will keep us in perfect peace.
Remind yourself that God is good
You are good and do good; teach me your statutes. PS 119.68
God’s goodness means he always does the right thing, the best thing. He never does evil. Each day of creation God looked at what he had made and saw that it was good. God couldn’t have made a more excellent creation. He always does a good job, a great job. If I ever need surgery I want a doctor who is good – meaning he will do an excellent job. He will do the right thing. God always treats his children good. He will always do the very best thing in our lives.
By
H/T The Aquila Report