Perfect peace. Ahh!

But wait. What’s that mean? It’s no more wars, right? No more conflict? Everyone agrees on every subject?

I actually think perfect peace supercedes those. We haven’t seen the absence of wars, the end of conflict, and people most certainly don’t agree on much of anything, much less everything! Yet God says He will keep us in perfect peace.

I think this God-thing, this keeping us in perfect peace is a peace He provides in the midst of wars, conflicts, unrest, and arguments. It’s the heart-rest felt and understood in the midst of the worst storm of your life. I believe I have experienced that perfect peace. Not because I’m all that and a box of chocolates, but because I kept my eyes on the Lord, knowing that every answer, every solution I needed was found only in Him.

See, my husband was lying in the trauma ICU and expected to die. He had had a subarachnoid hemmoraghic stroke – a brain aneurysm, something that 95% of the people who have don’t survive. I had heard the facts. I had walked with him through two emergency rooms, signed so many papers, seen the family come in to say good-byes or pray over him. I had given updates to those waiting and praying in the lobbies. In the middle of all that chaos, I felt peace. I was concerned. My mind went over how to do this and how to handle that. I recalled people I needed to contact, bills that needed to be paid, even how to handle getting the dog cared for, yet I felt a calm, a peace that is truly unexplainable outside God’s providence. All because I knew and repeated that I was trusting God for the outcome He wanted. I wasn’t ready to be a widow, but I was ready to accept that God knew what was best for my husband and me.

This is how we are given that perfect peace: when we constantly, in all circumstances, at every turn, keep our eyes on God, trusting Him for the best for us – something that’s harder to do in the good times than the bad, but it’s the constant focus of the good times that prepares us for the bad.

Let’s give it a try today. Got food in the fridge? Thank Him. Need food in the fridge? Ask Him. Happy as a lark? Share it with Him. Make Him your focus in all things and experience perfect peace.

Coffee, Bible, Journal.