God's Peace Is Found In God's Priorities

I've spent most of my life searching for peace. I don't think I'm alone in that. And for most of my life there's always been someone there, often many people, suggesting I could find that peace in God.

It turns out, that's not entirely true. Because I spent a lot of my life asking God for peace.

The problem was, I did it while chasing my priorities. And if I'm being honest, at times, my priorities didn't look much like the priorities God had for my life.

Every once in awhile, though, God would show up with a hit of peace in that fruitless chase. Just enough to let me know he was there. But then, often quite quickly, that peace would fade, like the fading high of a drug, leaving behind far more depression that peace.

Sometimes I'd respond by chasing my priorities harder, I must not have reached the grand state of peace yet. Sometimes I'd give up on peace altogether, it must be a myth.

Peace was a roller coaster ride.

Jesus had an apostle who wasn't big on roller coaster rides. His name was Paul. He once wrote his followers a letter from prison. Here's a bit of what he wrote:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

How?

How do I look high and wide for a peace that surpasses understanding, often talking to and leaning on the same God Paul is talking about here, yet land in places that feel like the chains of prison and not some inexplicable peace this guy Paul found there?

Well Paul, Paul never quit experiencing God's peace because he never quit living out God's priorities for his life. God put it on Paul's heart to spread God's love, so in prison, pen and paper out, that's exactly what he did.

We don't miss out on God's peace because God disappears from our lives. We miss out on God's peace because when God's priorities show up, we disappear.

These days, I know when I'm not feeling a peace that surpasses all understanding, my search for it starts with trying to better understand God's priorities for my life. Does that always get me there quickly? No. But I always know I'm on the right track.

That has turned out to be something helpful to know, because the chase for peace can lead us down some unpeaceful roads.

We can land in some places feeling like peace is a lie, when the real lie is that it can be found outside of God's priorities.

We can land in some places feeling like God doesn't care about my peace, when the reality is God sacrificed everything, to include his only son, so we'd be able to experience it. He's just not going to let us pick and choose where we experience it.

I don't think Paul would have chosen prison as his bucket list journey to peace. But Paul wasn't working off his bucket list, he was working off God's. And when it comes to peace, that can be a difference that surpasses all understanding.

If you're lacking peace today, you might want to consider your priorities. Sometimes it's not that we're lacking peace, it's just that we need a realignment of our priorities.