Peace

I have seen any lately but there used to be a bumper sticker that read, "Too Blessed To Be Stressed," which is a great slogan but so often the driver of the car seemed to be "too frayed to have prayed."  Perhaps you heard the story of the woman who was cussing out the person in front of her because the light had turned green and they didn't move right away.  The police officer pulled her over, saying he heard her rant from his car.  She said, "I didn't know it was a crime to cuss out the driver ahead of you."  He replied, "It isn't.  But with all the Christian bumper stickers on your car, I assumed you must have stolen it."

Obviously something is wrong when a Christian, professing to embrace the peace of Christ, lives in a pressure cooker and explodes in rants.  The Bible tells us, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (Phil 4:6-7).

Why do Christians build up, blow up and boil over?  Why are some so stressed that their life becomes a testimony against their being blessed?  Why doesn't the peace of God guard their hearts and minds in Christ as promised in the passage above?  I would submit it is because they do not follow the passage above.   Notice that the promise is preceded by the practice of replacing anxiety with "prayer and petition, with thanksgiving."

Just imagine if, instead of stressing about our jobs, we started thanking God for having a job and asking for his power to sustain you in your work with the full expectation of his daily presence.  What would that be like?  What if you trusted God to make up for your shortfalls and intercede on your behalf?  What if you knew that nothing was going to happen to you outside of his permissive will and that he always "worked everything for the good of those who love him" (Rom 8:28)?

Peace is not necessarily the absence of strife.  Peace is also the inward calm that carries you through the strife.  While peace can be an outward reality of circumstance, it is ore importantly held as an inward resting of conviction.  When we are certain of God's power and promise, we really do not waste much time being stressed or anxious.  Instead, we live in peace, a peace guarded by Christ's very presence in our daily life.  Jus' Say'n.