Is everything but peace taking over your life?

“Peace I leave with you; My [perfect] peace I give to you …”

John 14:27

What if God wanted to give you peace … and you had no place for Him to put it?

God’s peace doesn’t come as an intruder. He comes only as an invited guest. He won’t kick someone or something out so He can move in. His peace is so extensive and broad that it can’t be squeezed between your anger and your anxiety. It needs good soil to put down roots and grow in your life.

The dictionary defines peace as freedom from disturbance; quiet and tranquility. So what defines the things that disturb you … that are boisterous and bring anxiety and a loss of spiritual and emotional equilibrium?

Are you disturbed by that phone which accompanies you everywhere and is getting more strident and intrusive? Do you trade a meaningful half hour break with a friend and replace it with a sentence-at-a-time back and forth series of messages that makes you a prisoner to technology? Are you constantly bombarded with calls from people you don’t know, trying to get you to do buy things you don’t want or need?

Is the quiet you need drowned out by a television that is never turned off … or by background music that agitates instead of sooths? Is your preoccupation with the civil strife in our country right now being fed by constant analysis from people who aren’t able to do anything about it except talk? Do you fall into bed rehearsing blistering attacks on people who ‘just don’t get it?’ Is your meditation more on those who politically disagree with you than on the One waiting to calm and refresh your spirit?

God’s peace isn’t meant to be a piece of peace, tucked tightly among unrest, weariness, fear, unease and trauma. It’s meant to be a covering for all of life … a bedrock of spiritual and emotional support for the ‘whole you.’

It’s not a ‘break-open-if-needed’ piece of equipment but the foundation upon which all of successful living is built. Look at Psalm 119:165 from the Passion Translation: “There is such a great peace and well-being that comes to the lovers of your word, and they will never be offended.”

Did you notice the adjective ‘great’ before the word ‘peace?’

Pay attention to the promises of God’s Word. They are key. Worry is just a mild case of atheism. People who worry away the invitation of God’s peace are seldom serious followers of God’s Word.

This week empty your life of disturbances that are under your control. Make room for peace. As songwriter Warren Cornell wrote:

            Peace, peace, wonderful peace,

coming down from the Father above!

            Sweep over my spirit forever I pray

in fathomless billows of love!

 God’s gift of peace is yours … if you make room for it.