Journey into Lightl

I have been recovering for the past couple of months from major heart surgery. As you would expect, not everything is back to normal physically. Unusual things are happening, like my iron is low, and my energy level is not at full strength.

These imperfections often cause me to worry. I allow them to cause me to doubt that I will attain the prognosis of a full recovery.

So, when I noticed this week that a vein in my arm was discolored and was hard and protruding I did the natural thing – I got scared. I went immediately to the doctor to have him take a look at it to remove me from the danger I feared.

What a comfort he was! He said, “Don’t sweat the details. You have made it 99% of the way. The hard part was the 6 bypasses and the two aneurisms. You just need to accept the little aches and pains like what you have now” (it was an irritated vein that was the home of the IV during my hospital stay).

Thus, peace came to me when I refused to sweat the details. If God has gotten me this far, why can’t I expect that he will finish the job of my recovery? “Shall I bring [you] to the point of birth, and not give delivery?” (Isaiah 66:9).

Peace can be defined as the absence of a troubled and fearful inner world (John 14:27).

So, what keeps us from experiencing this peace?

One reason is that we often face our problems and future thinking we are alone- that we have to be our own god. Yet, we know deep within ourselves that we can’t control our circumstances and can’t solve all of our problems.

Even if we are aware that God is with us, we may doubt that he cares. Maybe he will just watch and see how I perform. Maybe “He is not a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1). Fear results and we lose our peace.

Many of us have a long history with God. He has done much for us in the past and we know it. Yet, we often don’t remember his past faithfulness and thus do not expect his faithfulness in the future. We are like Jesus’ disciples when he rebuked them for not learning from the past. “Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember?” (Mark 8:14-21).

Instead of trusting God with providing us his peace, we often choose to search for peace in good circumstances. Yet, circumstances never are good enough to give us peace of mind (John 16:33).

So, how do we change? How do we find the peace that we have been searching after?

One thing we can do is to pray. We can take our fears and troubles to God for his help. God promises that we will never figure out how it works, but we will experience supernatural peace (Philippians 4:6-7) Include thanks in those prayers too, for thanks helps us to grow in dependence on God.

“Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth more than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single [day] to his life” (Matthew 6:26-27).

Another thing we can do in our search for peace is to get to know our loving God, so that we feel his love. Our fears will never go away until we live in the reality that God loves us so much that he died for us. Only then can we experience a deep peace (1 John 4:18).

So, what can we do today to experience more peace of mind?

May I suggest that we take each problem or thing that is robbing us of our peace to God and ask for his help with it. Then, let us thank him for all the good things that he has put into our lives. Finally, may we thank him for what he will do to help us with our problems.

May God richly bless you with peace today!