You keep him in perfect peace
Isaiah 26:3-4
whose mind is stayed on you,
because he trusts in you.
Trust in the Lord forever,
for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.
This is not the first time I have written about peace. It fascinates me and I want to learn more about peace and experience it more! I think it keeps popping into my mind because, for the first time in my life, I am experiencing peace on a more regular basis. Peace has become normal, and fear and anxiety have become the rare feeling.
I like so many people had year upon year of anxiety. I was anxious when I woke up and when I went to sleep, with nightmares and stressful dreams while sleeping. I worried about legitimate things, and I worried about silly things. Fear permeated so many of my thoughts and affected many of my decisions.
For me, some of it came from poor choices. I was comfortable with sin and put myself in dangerous situations and stressful relationships. I watched horror and suspense movies then woke up in the middle of the night too scared to walk to the bathroom. The news stressed me out, deadlines at work stressed me out, deploying stressed me out, not deploying stressed me out, buying new towels stressed me out, leaving the oven on, not saying “bless you” when someone sneezed, nail colors, which fabric to buy, presentations, and choosing a church.
At some point, I crossed from some fears to many many fears. Anxiety kept me from making simple choices and driving on mountain roads. Fear stole more and more peace from me and was happy to mess with my relationships. For those of you who know what I’m talking about you know fear grows and takes whatever ground it can.
When I became a stay-at-home mom a decade ago, I remember waking up to big feelings of anxiety. I would open my eyes in the morning and search my mind to find out why I was stressed. Nothing was due at work! I didn’t have a long commute, and nothing was wrong with the house, the car, the kids, or my husband. I had thought work was stressing me out, but it turned out that I was just upset for no reason!
My fear was demonic and I was fully on board. I let it dictate my emotions and have my attention constantly.
Then Jesus! The Prince of Peace.
He invited me back into a relationship with Him when I was 32. The first thing to go was the nightmares. I thought I would be scared at night forever. 17 years of scary movies and shows that focused on fear whether they were rated R or for teens had taken their toll, but Jesus took away their consequences. I had invited the spirit of fear into my home and my life, and He kicked it out.
Next, I worried about the kids less and less. I fought back against the images and ideas that would flood my mind about what could happen to them, and now that I was fighting with the King of Kings on my side, I was successful. As I walked with Jesus and spent more time with Him peace started breaking through the anxiety a little bit at a time.
At first, they were moments of peace but over the years, they turned into hours and then days of calm and joy. The more He proved Himself to me and the closer I got to Him, the more I trusted Him and worried less. He would show me when to relax and let Him be in charge. Like the verse at the beginning of the post says, the more I kept my mind on Him, the more He kept my mind peaceful.
When I sin and gave those icky spiritual things access to me all the feelings of anxiety return. Pride allows me to worry about what people think of me, suspense movies make me wonder what that sound was in the hallway, and neglecting time in the Bible and time with my Creator ushers in a feeling of discomfort that I couldn’t quite shake. It’s not always sin. Sometimes it just comes out of nowhere and I don’t know why.
My peace is not yet constant, but man when those feelings of anxiety slam me now I know that they will go again soon. As I get to know God and His good, good qualities, and as I get to know His intentions toward me it gets easier to trust Him, obey Him, and relax. I fear God more, and man and Satan less. I put on my armor daily (Ephesians 6:10-18) and get on the battlefield with the God of Angel Armies who never loses. What is there to fear?
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