A Peace that Never Leaves You

Think about a time when you were worried. How did you deal with it? Maybe you tried to distract yourself, or perhaps you let your mind race through your problems. It’s natural to want to respond to our worries this way, but God shows us a better way to respond. 

Not long before Jesus went to the cross, He told His disciples that He would be leaving them. Worried about experiencing life without Him, the disciples wanted answers. But instead of giving them the response they hoped for, Jesus told His disciples to be at peace and not let their hearts be troubled. 

Imagine how frustrating this must have been for His followers. They sensed that Jesus was leaving, but they were trying to align what He was saying with their ideas for the future.

They questioned His words because they couldn’t understand them. 

In the same way, we can also be quick to try to find solutions to our problems when we’re worried. We can let our understanding of current events cloud our thinking and influence our conversations with God. But God’s purposes are beyond what we can see and understand. 

When Jesus told the disciples to be at peace and not worry, Jesus saw beyond the cross—He saw His resurrection, His return to heaven, and the arrival of God’s Holy Spirit.

In the same way, He sees beyond our situations. 

Because we live in an imperfect world, we will experience disappointments and hardships—but because we serve a good God, He sees beyond the bad things we go through. He sees our future filled with hope.

Jesus told His disciples to be at peace because He wanted them to trust in Him. Similarly, God wants us to be at peace in every situation as we trust Him to work things out for our good and His glory. 

So take some time today to reflect on some of the situations that are causing you to worry. Then, take a moment to tell God that you trust Him with each of these circumstances. Imagine handing Him each concern, and allow Him to hand you His peace in return.

My Thoughts

My latest visit to MD has been one filled with worries and stressed. It has been very cold here and our room, the one for guests, is in the basement. We have a space heater here, the basement is finished and furnished well, but it is cold here when the weather is cold. It was in the teens here all week, so, that space heater ran a lot, like almost constantly. It’s dry heat so I kept waking up with a headache. Then my blood pressure started rising. I tried to think of other things, scripture verses, praise songs, to distract me from the fact that my BP was higher each day, starting on Wednesday. When it went up to 178/110 and then to 198/108 I asked my husband to take me to the ER. I had tried unsuccessfully to get advice from my cardiologist in VA, but he never responded. His nurse told me to drink more water. I was already drinking 5-6 glasses a day, but I increased it, to no avail. Anyway, to make a long story short, I was treated in the ER for Hypertensive Urgent and then a migraine. My BP when I got there was over 200, concerning for me as a stroke survivor. The doctor ordered medication in my IV that brought the pressure down, then it bounced around a bit and my headache was worse. So, the doctor decided I had a migraine. She said the migraine may have caused the BP or the BP caused the migraine, but her next step was to give me meds for a migraine. That seemed to work well, my BP was more or less stable, so a little after midnight, she discharged me and my husband brought me home to our son’s house to rest. I was thankful to be in bed and able to sleep without the constant hospital noises and lights. I am very thankful for a friend who was praying for me and sent me several scriptures to meditate on while I was feeling so bad. One of them was the verse in the devotional above. Another was the same thought was Psalm 94:19: “When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy.” I kept telling myself that God was surrounding me, and once again, He came through for me. I was disturbed with my husband’s attitude. He told me just to take deep breaths and not think about my BP numbers and I would be fine. When I asked him to please pray with me, he didn’t. He was distracted with talking to our daughter-in-law’s parents who were also here. Anyway, I was distraught that he wouldn’t pray, so I contacted our daughter to pray and she put me on a prayer chain. That didn’t help the disappointment that I felt with my husband, so I am sure that didn’t help my stress either. I would like to thank all of you who took time to pray for me and especially praise be to God our Father who never left me.

In news about Dave, for whom I also asked for prayer: he is still in the hospital and has a lot of what his wife is calling “gunk” around his lungs. He is somewhat depressed because they first told him he would go home on Sunday and now they have moved it to Friday, so he has another week in the hospital. He is very ill and continues to need your prayers. He is having a front chest tube inserted today, so please pray specifically that procedure goes well.

Thank you all for your faithfulness and concern. You are friends, even though you are online, and I appreciate each of you. May God’s peace surround you all.