** Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee. ** Isaiah 26:3
It looks like ‘peace’ is my Christmas focus. I see it everywhere in my Bible reading. I try to read with my eyes and ears open each morning, looking for a thought to share. But the only word I seem to see is ‘peace’.
In Holiday Hustle and Peace Alarm, we have already talked a lot about how to maintain our peace when life gets overwhelming. But, if you are like me, December is a great month for a daily reminder that we should hold onto the Lord’s peace.
First, some random thoughts on today’s verse…Did you know that it is part of a song that will be sung in Judah? I didn’t. I missed that every time that I have read this chapter. Maybe if I sang this verse, I could live it better. 🙂 Does anyone have a tune for it??
Second, in this same chapter there is another verse on peace…
** LORD, thou wilt ordain peace for us: for thou also hast wrought all our works in us. ** 26:12
So, verse 3 says that the Lord keeps us in peace by what we do…keep our mind on Him.
In verse 12, it says that He gives us peace, because of the work He does in us.
Again, we have the Lord working in tandem with us. Or us with Him.
We see that a lot in the Scriptures. God does His part (perfectly) and we do our part (imperfectly). And then, if you have any experience with this process, you know that God does MORE, to make up for our LESS.
Back to our verses….
God offers us peace. He wants us to be filled with the peace that passes understanding. He wants us to have our minds on Him all the time. He ordains it. He desires it. He promises it.
But then we come into the picture.
We get overwhelmed by our schedule. We worry about how we will pay Holiday bills. We fuss over others’ mistakes. We fear…illness, people’s opinions, failure, confrontation….the list is endless…
We run from store to store getting our gift list done. We fuss over another Christmas party to attend. We stress over all the cooking and baking that needs to be done.
All of the stressing and worrying and fussing and running around starts to bubble inside of us until we boil over and start to whine, complain, lose our temper, and criticize….well, that was my Sunday, anyway! 🙁
And poof! Our peace is gone!
Back to square one!
Take it from me, losing our peace is not the way to deal with the holidays or with life in general. We lose ground. We lose our joy. We lose our confidence in our walk with the Lord, and it is our own fault, not His.
But, it’s Monday. It’s a new day. The Lord’s mercies are fresh and new today. We are 100% forgiven for yesterday’s mistakes.
So, let’s give it another try. Let’s start today with the Lord’s peace. He promises to keep us there, if we don’t run away from it. And He promises in verse 12 to keep trying to work peace in us, every day, through more trials, problems and crisis management until we get it right and keep our mind on Him, through all of it!
Peace be with you all!!!