God's Peace

 By: Grace Metzger 

I have told you these things so
that in Me you may have peace
You will have suffering in this
world. Be courageous!
I have conquered the world.
John 16:33

My week can be described as a lot of things, but peaceful is not one of them. Between working, family, church, and everything else that requires my attention, I have a very chaotic week. I didn’t realize until recently how much chaos and hectic lives can weigh on your soul. This morning it really weighed on my soul, from running late to work, to dropping my lunch in a puddle, etc. The stress got to me and I begin getting anxious and got a short fuse. I didn’t feel God’s peace at all that morning.

On my drive home I begin to question where God’s peace went. Why did it seem to abandon me when the storm of chaos begin taking over? I quickly realized that peace never left me, but I got so distracted with my hectic life that I stopped it from being in my life. I didn’t ask God to give me peace, I didn’t pray that God calm everything down, I didn’t do anything but complain and get angry at my situation.

I’ll be honest, I was a bit embarrassed that complaining and anger were my first reaction to a stressful situation. I would love to be able to tell everyone that as soon as something happened I instantly turned to God and prayed and everything was taken care of, but unfortunately I am still very human and still learning. So it took me longer then it should have to turn to God’s Word and see what He has to say about His Peace. One of my favorite things He said was in Leviticus 26:6 “I will give peace to the land and you will lie down with nothing to frighten you.” How wonderful life would be if we were able to just lie down and have nothing to frighten us! As someone who has quite a large list of stuff that frightens, her this sounds amazing.

One story that comes to mind is Jesus calming the storm. Jesus and His disciples were on a boat and Jesus went to sleep, tired from a long day of preaching. As He slept, a storm came upon the ship. The disciples instantly began to fear for their life, even going as far as waking Jesus up and asking Him if He cared that they were about to die. Jesus got up and rebuked the storm and said to the sea, “Silence! Be still.” And everything calmed down at the sound of His words.

The reason I’m telling you about this story is because we have a tendency to act just like the disciples when stressful situations come to us. We start panicking and losing the peace that God gives us because we’re more focused on what happening then God. I don’t know about you but I don’t want to be like the disciples in this story, I want to be like Jesus. He wasn’t worried or anxious, He didn’t allow the chaos of the situation to get to Him. He was able to maintain peace despite everything because He knew to turn to God first in every situation. 

I want to do that. I want to turn to God first when my life starts becoming stressful and overwhelming. I want to live like it says in Psalm 4:8, “I will both lie down and sleep in peace, for You alone, Lord, make me live in safety.” I want that life, where I can trust that God gives me a life in safety. Where my situations can’t overcome me.

The Lord gives His people strength
The Lord blesses His people with peace.
Psalm 29:11

God wants us to have this life. He wants to bless us with His peace. All He asks is that we come to Him. Come to Him when chaos and stress are overwhelming us. He will give us the strength and the peace to be able to handle any situation with Him in control.

Discussion question:
1. What do you do when the stress of life starts to overwhelm you?
2. How do you find Peace in stressful situations