Peace means many things to many people. When I think about peace, what comes to mind are sleeping babies. They look so peaceful and don’t have a care in the world. They are not bothered about what you think about them. They are just content to be having that nap and are not thinking about tomorrow. They have no one to impress, no goal to achieve, no bills to pay and no responsibilities. So, when they sleep, they are just peaceful.
Adults on the other hand could be asleep but, in their subconscious, they have many things bothering them, they have things they want to achieve, things they need to do or stop doing, they have a family member that is a concern, and so many other things like that.
There is a question I would like to ask? Can Adults have peace? What is peace to an Adult? I believe Adults can have peace and live a peaceful life.
Peace is not the absence of trouble. Peace is the presence of God in that troublesome situation.
One of the scriptures that I love so much is Isaiah 26:3. It says “Thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you.” This means that you might be facing a particular challenge but instead of focusing on the challenge, you make up your mind to focus on God. It might be a challenge that you can’t ignore because it is staring you in the face, but you intentionally chose to focus on the bigness of God.
The story that comes to mind is that of Daniel in the Lion’s den. Most Christians are familiar with this story. It’s one of the famous Bible stories that Sunday School teacher’s like to focus on. It also amuses children but it really happened.
Daniel was an honest, hardworking and faithful man. His fellow government officials were jealous of him so they tricked the King – Darius, into passing a law which stated that anyone who prayed to any god or man within the next 30 days would be thrown into the lion’s den.
Daniel had always prayed to God daily and decided not to fear man and continue his daily habit of praying to God. Daniel was caught and thrown into the Lion’s Den. When Daniel was caught, we don’t hear of him running around, calling the king and people names or asking for a protest match against this corrupt administration.
I believe he continued praying to God and trusting God. He had seen God work in other aspects of his life that he thought, if God fought for me in other situations, he would definitely fight for me in this one. Remember when he refused to eat the meat served to idols and still came out looking ten times better than his peers? He had seen God help him before.
When Daniel was thrown in the Lion’s den, someone lost their peace. It was not Daniel; it was the King. He passed the night fasting, he instructed that no music be played to him and he could not sleep. Why couldn’t he sleep? Afterall, he was not the one who was thrown in the Lion’s Den?
Early in the morning, he rushed out of the palace and went to the den of the lions and cried out. Daniel, servant of the living God, has God been able to deliver you from the lions? He wasn’t really expecting an answer but he was shocked when he heard Daniel reply, “My God has sent his angel and has shut the mouth of the lions’ and they have not hurt me. Some people even claim that Daniel was asleep in the Lion’s den. The only thing that could have made Daniel have peace in the face of such life-threatening challenge is his focus on God. His answer to the King proves that his focus was on God and not his strength to defeat the lions. He said “My God has sent his angel to shut the mouth of the lion.” That ties up nicely with that scripture which states that ‘I will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on me because he trusts in me.
Philippians 4:6,7 also admonishes us to “Be careful for nothing; but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and mind through Christ Jesus.
We need to let the peace of God call the shots in our lives and act as a referee in our emotions and decisions. When we have hard days, and things are trying to steal our peace, we don’t have to surrender to the negative emotions, we can give the situation to God and rely on him.
Or it could be that we have a decision to make and we don’t know which way to go. Our head might be screaming, do this but deep down in our hearts, it seems God is saying we should do something else that does not seem rational.
The peace of God concerning one of the situations is usually the light giving us a go ahead in that situation. Of course, it will always have to line up with God’s word. We need to let God’s peace in our hearts guide our every decision.
Before I leave, I will share a short testimony.
Last year June, my children and I were all working from home. I was working from my bedroom and the children were all in their rooms working while one of them was in the living room. I was in a meeting when I saw a chat message from the principal of the firm that he wanted to chat. To cut the long story short, I was made redundant because of COVID.
This same thing had happened to me when I was in my twenties in London England. It was not even a full-time job; it was a contract job. I was believing God that the contract was going to be extended but it wasn’t. I was so hurt by that and I could not bring myself to tell anyone. I lost my peace. I was sad.
I was so bitter that I did not even go to work on the last day. My fellow workers had bought flowers for me but I didn’t show up. The Monday after my job ended, my junior sister noticed I was not going to work and that was when I let the cat out of the bag.
But this time, I had grown in my walk with God. Some of you know that I wrote a book about “Getting a job God’s way”. I had the peace that God was going to come through for me.
I just got out of the room, strolled downstairs and told my children that I had been made redundant. I had peace about it that God was going to make room for me and that I was going to get a better job. I truly did not doubt it.
2 weeks after, I got headhunted, and was called for an interview. I was so happy. I passed the first interview and was scheduled to have 2 more. While I was waiting for the next 2 interviews, I got called from another agent and she scheduled a chat. I passed the first interview for the 1st job, they were to have 2 more but they fast tracked me to just the last stage. The day of the last interview happened to fall on the same day as the 1st interview with the 2nd company. I had the final interview, and within an hour, I was offered the job.
I was so happy that I decided that I was going to accept the offer. However, I did not cancel the other chat, as it was too short a notice to cancel. 5 minutes to the other interview, I just picked up my phone to see who will be calling me and then realized it was a team’s interview and not a chat.
I dashed upstairs and just wore a shirt with my pair of shorts underneath. The lady introduced herself and decided to tell me about the job and the package. That was when I realised that they paid more than the other one and then I got a bit interested.
I had the first interview and was told they will get back. However, 2 things bothered me about this 2nd job. I didn’t like the name and it seemed as if the hours were going to be longer.
But I had a kind of peace about this 2nd job. It didn’t make sense because the other one had a better name. I felt the spirit of God encouraging me not to discount the 2nd one because of the hours. At least I’ll save traveling time as it was a 100% remote job.
Today, I can testify that
Because I focused on God and let God’s peace lead me.