“Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee.” ~ Isaiah 26:3
Ok, so you are going through a difficult time in your life and you come across the above scripture. It sounds real good on paper but, in all honesty you are wondering how you are going to pull this thing off. That is, how are you going to keep your mind fixed on the Lord when there is chaos all around you, your spirit is unsettled, and a breakthrough appears to be no where in site?
The truth is, if keeping your mind focused on the Lord in the midst of trials were impossible to do then the Lord would not have allowed it to be a part of His holy word. Now, the Lord does acknowledge the fact that there are some things that can interrupt your life and cause your peaceful lifestyle to be shaken. However, He does have a solution for that and He promises to not just let you experience it for a few minutes or a few hours but, He says that He will allow you to stay in the perfectness of His peace. It is in this place that you are not consumed with your own thoughts, or mental and spiritual assaults that the enemy attempts to send your way.
The key is “perfect peace.” The Lord has promised perfect peace to those who trust in Him. Once you have received His perfect peace then keeping your mind focused on Him is more conceivable. This kind of peace is absolutely unexplainable and inconceivable to the natural mind. Why, because it is supernatural and it is something that only God can give. Philippians 4:7 calls it
“…the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
By all means if you find that this kind of peace is lacking in your life then ask the Lord to download His supernatural peace into your mind, will, emotions, and spirit.
It is not a pseudo type of peace in which sometimes people choose to ignore their problems and resort to calling it peace. On the contrary, it is tangible and cannot be tampered with because God Himself has placed it within your spirit. It is the kind of peace and embrace from God that causes you to sleep real good even though a storm is raging all around you. This kind of peace will constantly let you relax in the fact that God is still in control. His position has not changed nor has He been demoted. It will even cause boldness to rise up within you so that you can confidently follow the perfect example of Jesus Christ (Mark 4:39) and:
- Rebuke the wind, that thing that is stirring up trouble
- Tell the waves to be still, call forth the type of atmosphere that you want
- Because the Holy Spirit is living inside of you the storm will obey your voice and a peaceful environment will show up.
Reflections
1. How valuable is your peace to you?
2. Based on what you just read, how will you handle things that disturb your peace?
3. Do you think that the Lord is concerned about your state of mind?
4. What scriptures can you meditate on regarding God’s promises of peace?
Yes, God will send hope to change your life!
Once, when I was going through a tough time in my life the Lord dropped two words into my spirit, the word “hope” and the word “delivered.” I believe that the Lord sent an angel as a supernatural postman to deliver a special gift of hope to me at my most crucial moment. The word grateful does not describe the magnitude of what it feels like to have the Lord acknowledge your pain and bring healing to your soul all at the same time.
Without the Lord downloading His supernatural hope into my spirit everything else that I attempted to do to get out of that hope depleted space was of no effect. The smallest glimmer of the perfect light of Christ is able to pierce the deepest existence of darkness. One thing that I emphatically know about Our Heavenly Father is that His character never changes. He feels whatever pain, heartaches, challenges, or difficulties that we may encounter.
The Lord desires to see us flourish in every area of our lives. His love and compassion for us never fails. He will come along right in the midst of your pain and communicate with you in a way that only you and Him understand and give you hope that points to a brighter day. His sweet communion with you will cause you to know that His light is shining on you after all. May I take this time to remind you to quickly take notice of the smallest glimmer of hope that you see.
For in the place in which your hope is being challenged the enemy will bombard you with doubt, fear, and unbelief. It is his job to try to make you think that there is no power in the blood of Jesus, that the Lord doesn’t hear your cry, and that He is not going to come through for you. You must quickly dismiss his lies at the first thought that does not line itself up with the peaceful loving words that the Lord says about you in His holy word. So when God shows you that glimmer of light quickly recognize it and hold on to it.
Thank Him for the light that’s causing all hopelessness to leave, and even ask Him to shine more of His goodness upon you! Soon you will discover that a positive change has taken over your situation and that there is a new atmosphere that is filled with the Lord’s immeasurable joy, deliverance, renewed strength, faith, and hope.
Reflections
- How soon should you recognize and get rid of negative thoughts?
- Think about a time when your hope was challenged.
- Now think about when the Lord touched you with His hand of compassion and began to turn things around for you.
- What can you say with full assurance about God’s grace, faithfulness, and unfailing love?
Do you feel isolated? Is this feeling as if no one else in the entire world has ever experienced your intense pain and grief? Do you ever question if anyone cares for you, perhaps even God?
It is in times like these that we dare not forget that we need a Savior to step in and deliver us from our sorrows and despair. Jesus can bring light to every dark situation. The Bible tells us to cast our cares upon Him for He cares for us (1Peter 5:7). The word cast literally means to throw. When something is thrown it is projected with force to insure that the projected object reaches the intended destination. When God tells us to cast our cares, our worries upon Him, He is our intended destination. What a wonderful privilege we have as children of God. He invites us to throw our worries upon Him. Why, you might ask, because He cares enough about us to do something to alleviate the problem or to help us deal with the problem.
The word of God declares that if we suffer, we shall also reign with Him (2 Tim 2:12a). Jesus experienced the most painful suffering of all. He was humiliated, verbally abused, ridiculed, rejected, and then nailed to a cross where upon He died. What a horrible thing for anyone to have had to experience, even more so, for an innocent man to have to suffer. However, this painful crucifixion had to occur. It was part of our destiny. It was part of our promise. It was the only way we would be able to receive eternal life. God allowed Jesus to go through the crucifixion because of His great love and concern for you and me. But, God did not leave Jesus in a lifeless state because; when He resurrected Him, He possessed all power! With this in mind, we have an assurance that if we are experiencing pain and suffering that God wants us to experience, He will not leave us in a lifeless state rather, He will resurrect us. He will make us alive in Him! When God changes our pain into triumph, it is a truth that becomes monumental. It reaffirms the fact that God really does care about us. It also allows us to see the strength, patience, wisdom, and tenacity that God places in us. It allows us to see the sufficiency of His grace.
Let’s talk about some of the promises.
Isaiah 26:3 says “Thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee because he trusteth in thee.” If we focus on God, who has all of the answers to life’s problems, He has promised to keep us in perfect peace. Only God can give peace that is perfect in every way. There is no sorrow in His peace only an assurance that He is carrying you and working things out on your behalf.
I conclude with one of my favorite scriptures found in Romans 8:18. I can always count on this scripture to give me hope for a brighter day when I am faced with a difficult period in my life. Romans 8:18 says, “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory which shall be revealed in us.” In other words, yes I may be going through a difficult time now but, when God’s glory is seen in me, my painful situation will have seemed minute.
The Bible is full of God’s promises. I challenge you to search for scriptures that will encourage you to believe and wait for the manifestation of God’s promises. He is very capable of turning darkness into light. Only trust Him!
Reflections
1. What scriptures serve as reminders that God is in control of the painful circumstances that you may be facing?
2. Complete the following statement: When I am going through a difficult time, I can always count on the Lord to __________________________________________
3. Make a list of things that you’re worried or concerned about and throw them to the Lord, ask Him to help you leave them in His capable hands, and thank Him for the outcome.
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