How To Have Peace

I found the following definition of peace so helpful. It is easy to have "peace" when all within our lives is calm, but what about when storms around us rage? A lack of peace in my life is evidence that I'm at conflict with the will of God.

The peace of God means the absence of conflict with the will of God. It means harmony within, concord with his purpose for our lives.

Elisabeth Elliot shares about an elderly woman her and her family knew for a long time and how she always exuded peacefulness. If you had asked her what her secret was, Elliot says she would no doubt have given a little shrug and a little chuckle. The sweet old wrinkled face would have looked up quizzically. She would not have known what to say. She simply did what the Christians of Philippi were told to do: "Don't worry over anything whatever; tell God every detail of your needs in earnest and thankful prayer, and the peace of God, which transcends human understanding, will keep constant guard over your hearts and minds as they rest in Christ Jesus."

Colossians 3:15 suggests that the peace of Christ is the "arbiter" of our hearts, ruling out all faithless response to trouble, all distress, anxiety, fretfulness, frustration, and resentment. It establishes order. Those who accept the grace of this gift know tranquillity which can withstand all assaults, a stillness unbroken by the world's noise, and a repose in the midst of intense activity--repose which a nerve-racked world cannot possibly give. For only Christ himself, who slept in the boat in the storm and then spoke calm to the wind and waves, can stand beside us when we are in a panic and say to us Peace. It will not be explainable. It transcends human understanding. And there is nothing else like it in the whole wide world. - E.E.

Peace that guards our hearts and minds, as well as transcends understanding can only come from one place...Christ. And even though it is a precious peace, it is a gift the Lord loves to give His children. He is more ready to give than I am willing to ask. He has already given us His blood, so why would He withhold peace when we earnestly seek it? He wouldn't. So, I am hoping to follow the example of Elisabeth Elliot's friend Mrs. Kershaw and have an absence of conflict with the will of God. Only then can I have PEACE!