Personal

Peace

How important is peace to you personally?   Now that is worth pondering on, and this morning sometime around four, I awoke to a mind that was not at peace, and I had thoughts flooding my mind that were the opposite of love and had their roots in anger and hate.  I laid in that bed for thirty minutes wanting only to turn off those thoughts and go back to sleep, but I lost that battle, and got up realizing that a spiritual battle was being waged to steal my joy, my peace. 

I’m sharing this personal struggle with you because I believe many of you may also be under this same attack.  My first thought was not to wake Jan and so I went into the living area and began to tell the Father that I understood that His ways are not my ways and His thoughts are higher than my thoughts, and that my deepest desire was to find rest in Him.  As I prayed and looked in the Scriptures, I found a priestly blessing that the Lord spoke to Moses, Tell Aaron and his sons how you are to bless the Israelites.  “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. (Numbers 6:24-26 ESV),

What a great prayer, and is that not what each of us needs, to have the Lord’s face to shine upon us and be gracious to us.  But to us whose hope is in Christ, we have this blessing found in 2 Corinthians 13:11-14, “Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you.  The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”

           

I often look to the writings of Oswald Chambers “My Utmost for His Highest” and this morning thoughts were taken from Romans 8:28, this is how Chambers began; “The circumstances of a saint’s life are ordained of God.  In the life of a saint there is no such thing as chance.  God by His providence brings you into circumstances that you cannot understand at all, but the Spirit of God understands.”  Now that’s good stuff, but look to Jesus, for He has said the following: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” (John 14:27 ESV)

This morning the enemy of my soul, the one Jesus calls a thief, came to steal my Joy, and my peace, it was a real battle, but God, how I love that phrase; “But God” for it was to Him I ran and said Father, and He took me in His loving arms and restored my peace.  I was reminded that nation after nation has come up with a wiser plan and each time God has allowed them to go that way, and He laughs at them, and most never return to greatness, for they placed their hope and trust in themselves, and not in the God who gives them His power.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice