Day 2737 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Isaiah 26:3 NIV

Perfect peace. Now that sounds like a pretty nice thing to have in life! But it also sounds like something that all of us have tried and yet failed to find along this journey. Peace seems to be one of those ideas that’s often nothing more than a distant hope that we never really manage to find. Even when we do everything we can to deal with life and keep things from getting to us, we're still surrounded by things that attack our peace and leave us instead with doubt, and worry, and fear, and confusion. That's just how life goes.

But just because these lives are often far from peaceful doesn't mean that peace is impossible. The problem is that we just go about finding it in all the wrong ways. We claim to want peace, but we also give away our time to focusing on how frustrating our circumstances are at any given moment. We want to find peace, but at the same time we’re still focused on trying to find our way to this perfect life that we have always desired. We want peace, but we give so much room in our minds to things that just don’t make peace possible. It’s not that peace is unattainable. It’s just that we aren’t willing to go where it’s found.

Peace is found in steadfast focus. We have to let things go. We have to stop being distracted by all these worldly concerns that have convinced us they matter. We have to stop playing the games, entertaining the noise, and letting ourselves be dragged around by everything going on around us. We have to put our foot down and make the choices that get rid of the things that are taking up room that only Jesus ought to have in our minds. But is that what we’re doing? Are we making Christ our everything, or is He just something we focus on whenever Facebook gets boring and there are no exciting news stories?

We don’t find peace by simply praying a prayer and opening our eyes expecting to find a suddenly more tranquil world where there's no more hardship or pain or trials or difficulty. Calling on the name of Jesus doesn’t necessarily move the mountains in front of us. Maybe the point is to break down the mountains of distractions and frustration that have grown inside of us. Maybe the point is to help us line out our priorities and realize that we’ve allowed all kinds of nonsense to take up residence in our minds that does nothing but shove peace further and further from our lives. Faith doesn't change the lives that we live, but it does change how we live them.

Faith helps us learn to stay focused on what matters and keep all the distractions in their proper place. That’s one of the biggest benefits of the trials and hardships we face. They help us learn to keep our priorities lined out. They help us learn to focus even more on Christ and the promises we have in Him. They help us strengthen our resolve and not simply live at the whim of whatever may happen next or whatever headline may start making the rounds or whatever new foolishness takes social media by storm. But so often we allow what’s going on around us to get inside of us and steal our time, our energy, our focus and leave us with more questions and concerns than peace.

So it's no big secret that struggle is just part of this story. But still, even through all the struggle and strife that we find ourselves facing, peace doesn't have to be impossible to find. That's where our faith comes in. You see, our faith is this reminder that there's a plan unfolding behind what we can see. It tells us that God is in control even when everything seems to be slipping further from normalcy. It teaches us to walk by trust in God's will knowing that even when things are hard and don't make sense and are nowhere close to what we had wanted, that it's all okay because God's love wants only the very best for us.

That's where our peace is ultimately found. Not in a perfect life that unfolds exactly the way we want it to go. It's not in being able to avoid the hard days and storms that blow across our horizon. It's not really about anything that happens to us at all. We find peace inside through a choice to firmly fix our minds on Christ. That's what this verse is teaching. He keeps us in perfect peace. He is our peace. He is our rest. He is our confidence and our trust and our promise that everything will work out better than we could imagine and far better than we deserve.

But our minds often make room for other things. We get focused on the misery of whatever our present situation may be. We get lost worrying about everything we still want and yet don't have. We get distracted by the headlines and find ourselves thinking about everything that's going on in this wacky world. We get caught up looking at things of this world, or mistakes of the past, or our hopes of what the future may be. All of it may seem pretty harmless, but any time that we give space in our minds to worldly things or temporary concerns or selfish desires or social anxieties, then we're not 100% focused on Jesus.

And then we wonder why our lives aren't more peaceful!

Like I said, our faith reminds us that God is in control and that His perfect will for our lives is unfolding a little more every single day. But our doubt or fear or preferences still tend to hold a little more of our hearts and minds than we'd like to admit. And what we need to understand is that it's a choice. We choose what we focus on in life. We choose how much time we give to different things. We choose our priorities, and while some little things may not seem like a very big deal, everything we allow in is something that's taking up room that Christ could have.

So we need to really stop and consider what we're allowing to live in our minds. What are we giving our time to that may very well be keeping peace at a distance? What things are we still idolizing that are taking up space that Jesus could have? What worries or goals or desires are we still letting take up a portion of our lives, and are they worth it considering what they may be costing us?

You see, everything we choose to focus on or worry about is something that we're saying is worth our time, our energy, and even potentially our peace. Is that the case? Does it really matter what someone else thinks of you? Does it really matter how good or how bad of a job some politician is doing? Does it really matter how rude the neighbors are? Does it really matter how many times your roommate has watched that rerun? Does it really matter that you said something silly to someone years ago and still feel like a dork?

My point is that peace is something that often seems hard to find because we're worrying about all these other things rather than letting it all go. We're choosing to give nonsense room in our minds, and anything that we allow to consume our thoughts is also taking up Jesus' room in our lives. And that's why life often seems so hectic and burdensome. It's not because life is any harder than it would have been anyway. It's because we're not able to fully focus on Jesus as we keep making all this room and time for things that just don't matter.

Friends, peace isn't impossible in life. Don't get me wrong, the world and many of those of in it definitely don't make things easy. But again, we choose who or what we focus on in life. And when we make Christ our sole focus, then we will find His perfect peace! We will find ourselves unable to worry about all the stuff that once kept us up at night. We will find ourselves unafraid of the trials and tribulations that may come our way. We will find rest for our hearts and souls as we grow in Him because we'll find everything else fading into oblivion where it honestly should have been all along.

Just stop giving room in your mind to things that are upsetting or aggravating or unsettling. Stop worrying about things that don't matter. Stop focusing on things that don't make you feel better. Stop living a life choosing things that bring you down and keep peace at a distance. Just remember that it's all a choice and it's one that only we can make. But when we choose to make Christ our everything, then everything else just won't have any room to creep in and drag us down.

Our trust, our hope, our joy, our peace are all found and perfected in Christ. So stop looking other places. Stop thinking that an easy life will make you happier. Stop thinking that the world calming down will make peace easier to find. Stop building your trust into things that will only let you down. When our trust is placed in Christ then His peace invades our hearts. And again, not because everything is suddenly easier or more comfortable. But because with Him as our sole focus and main priority, we’ll always have that reminder that He is there, He is fighting for us, and He is leading us to something better than we could imagine.

So trust in Him. Focus on Him. Stop letting all this other junk take His place on the throne in your life. He will keep us in perfect peace when our minds are steadfast, focused, and fully reliant upon Him.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold