Perfect Peace
“JESUS GAVE ME PEACE in place of my chaos!†said Maria, a new believer who was going through a very difficult time with her family. She learned to lean hard on God in the good times as well as the bad. She began to read God’s word and to pray for the very first time, focusing her mind on God instead of her problems. She learned to trust that God was in control, even though it didn’t always feel like it.
While at Toccoa Falls College, I remember meeting with other students on Wednesday evenings for Student Missions Fellowship (SMF) to pray together in prayer bands. Many times we prayed for new believers, that God would strengthen them in their walk with Him. At times we “older believers†need to be reminded of this truth as well.
It comes naturally for me to focus on my problems or on my feelings; I need to make an effort to keep my mind focused on the Lord and trust Him in everything, then His perfect peace invades my soul. I have learned, just like my friend Maria, that God’s peace is not the absence of problems in our lives—
because we will always have problems—but it is God’s presence in our lives that makes all of the difference.
“You will keep him in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you.†(Isaiah 26:3)
(By Mrs. Stephanie Beers, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, TFC Alumna, TFC Missionary-in-Residence. Taken from the book: Leaves From the Tree God Planted © 2006 by Toccoa Falls College, p. 68-69)