What brings you peace? Is it time away on the beach, with crashing waves as your soundtrack? Is it that hot cup of your favorite coffee or tea in the morning before anyone can disturb you? Perhaps it’s the completion of your to do list, a healthy bank account, a morning run, a kid free weekend, or being with your favorite person.

You’re not alone because I desire these things too.  I could write paragraphs of all the ways we find peace in the tangible. Many of the things we seek are good things, good gifts. But what happens when the tangible is not obtainable? Or what happens when we obtain what we think will fix our unrest and it’s not enough?

I have been meditating on Isaiah 26:3 lately and I’m amazed that I can read the same scripture multiple times over the course of my life and somehow (thanks Holy Spirit), I’m able to gain a better understanding of who God is and what He is communicating to us.

“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts you.” (ESV)

Two things about this verse stood out:

First, it doesn’t say He keeps him in perfect peace whose circumstances are good. It says whose mind is stayed on you (you = the Lord). This was timely encouragement for me considering I was complaining recently about needing a break to “clear my mind”. If the peace of God is reduced to only fleeting tangible things, we’d have much to be discouraged about. Let’s face it. We can’t live our life on perpetual vacation. Sometimes, we barely complete the first task on our to do list. In this economy, it’s tough finding ways to save and make more money. The good news is that the peace that God offers can be experienced in the middle of what may feel like all hell breaking loose in our lives. How do we obtain it? By keeping our minds stayed on Him. And how do we do that? There are many ways. Prayer, reading and meditating on the scriptures, and worship through confession and song are great starts. If we are so overwhelmed that we cannot muster up the strength to do these things on our own, reaching out to a friend or someone in our local church family who can pray for and walk with us is a blessing.

If the peace of God is reduced to only fleeting tangible things, we’d have much to be discouraged about.

Second, the last part of the verse gives us the reason why we can both remain in perfect peace and keep our minds stayed on the Lord. It’s when we trust Him. Practicing this can be difficult at times. We are real people with real problems, and it may feel like a joke to start singing or praying when the kids are screaming and crying, or when the car breaks down, or when a loved one passes away. It can seem counterintuitive. Shouldn’t we be doing something to fix it? I heard someone on the radio once say about prayer, “It’s not the least I can do, it’s the most important thing I can do.” When we stop in the middle of a storm and surrender our situation to the Lord, seeking His help and wisdom, we are acknowledging in the moment that we trust Him more than ourselves to see us through it and we trust Him to do it His way.

Many attribute peace to a feeling of calm or ease, but the peace of God is supernatural. It is beyond what we feel (Philippians 4:7). Think about the last time you were in a difficult situation. Whether you prayed, or worshipped, or began reading scripture out loud, do you remember what occurred after? Did everything immediately get better? Sometimes it does. More often, however, hard things are still happening, but our perspective and response to them changed because we are now entrusting control over the situation to the Lord, confident that He is good and will work all things together for our good. That’s peace.

The short and sweet of this is, we can trust that the peace God gives is real and everlasting. That’s why it’s called perfect peace.  I can’t promise that all your problems will go away overnight, but it’s possible to remain at peace in every circumstance. The thing is if we don’t believe God is who He says He is ( Genesis 1:1, Exodus 3:14), and if we don’t believe that He sent His one and only son Jesus to atone for our sin through death and resurrection (Romans 10:9-10), and if we don’t believe that Jesus gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit as a helper in this life (John 14:26), then we won’t be able to experience this supernatural peace.

I’d like to extend an invitation for you to join me in daily choosing to receive the gift of peace that the Lord gives again and again. And this is my prayer for us as we trust in the Lord together:

“Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in every way. The Lord be with you all.” 2 Thessalonians 3:16 ESV