The Promise of Peace

Suffering, turmoil, conflict, and indecision are all realities in this life, and we have to deal with them.

You can't just pray to God and expect him to make all your problems magically disappear.

That's not the way to true peace.

That's only a way of avoiding responsibility.

When bad things happen to us and to other people, we have a moral obligation to get involved.

We have a duty to fight evil and alleviate suffering.

We have a responsibility to look adversity squarely in the face and struggle against it with every fiber of our being.

It's just that in our effort to deal with these external challeneges, we can't ever allow ourselves to focus on them to the exclusion of what's most important in life—our relationship with God.

When we make God number one in our minds, even our struggles can become a means of bringing us closer to him.

And that, once again, is the definition of true peace: union with God.

When Peter focused his mind, heart, and soul on the Lord, he was able to walk on water.

But walking on water didn't mean that he could stop the sea from rising or the wind from blowing.

It meant that he was able to stay above the waves and overcome the storm.

That's exactly what God is willing to do for us.

He's willing to give us a peace that, in the words of Scripture, "transcends all understanding."23

No matter what kind of stressful problems we encounter in life, no matter how aggravating the situation or terrible the suffering, we always have the ability to face our challenges with amazing calmness and strength of character.

If you doubt this, maybe you should try taking a short break from all the commotion and tension and noise of your life.

Life is so very noisy.

Perhaps you need to close your eyes and shut out the world for a little while.

Try to forget all the problems, all the worries, all the details, and all the responsibilities that have been weighing so heavily on your mind.

Try to place yourself, for just a few seconds, back in that dark tomb in Palestine, on that first Easter morning.

If you could be there now, just before daylight, and watch the Resurrection take place, what would you see?

You would see the King of the universe—the person responsible for placing the planets in their orbits and for laying the foundation of the world; the person who was and is ultimately responsible for all the activities that have ever taken place, all the busyness, all the bustle, all the enterprise, all the movement, all the work, all the energy, all the power, and all the life that ever existed—you would see that person slowly and methodically folding his garments and placing them in a corner, quietly making sure his burial chamber was in perfect order before departing it forever.

If you ask that person for some of his peace, you can rest assured that his answer will be yes.

But you have to Ask.

From "10 Prayers God Always Answers "

Stay Strong!