Peace and Trusting God in difficult times

Jesus walks on water and calms the storm

In the New Tes­ta­ment, Jesus says,

^“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be trou­bled and do not be afraid.”(John 14:27)

 God invites us to peace of heart. The peace of God sus­tains us even in the midst of our tri­als because God is the source of Peace. He alone gives true and last­ing peace.

When faced with per­son­al tri­als and those of oth­ers, what should we do? How should we react?

First, we must look to God and bring to Him all our con­cerns in our prayers. He will help us.

 “Call upon Me in time of trou­ble and I will deliv­er you.”     (Psalm 50:15)

“Do not be anx­ious about any­thing. But in every­thing by prayer and peti­tion, and thanks­giv­ing, make your requests known to God and the peace of God, which sur­pass­es all under­stand­ing, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philip­pi­ans 4:4–7)

 Sec­ond­ly, we must resist fear and dis­cour­age­ment.

“Fear not, for I am with you;
Be not dis­mayed, for I am your God.
I will strength­en you,
Yes, I will help you,
I will uphold you with My right­eous right hand.” (Isa­iah 41:10)

Instead, we can fix our hearts and minds on God.

“You will keep him in per­fect peace,whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.” (Isa­iah 26:3)

 For exam­ple, we can remind our­selves of the good­ness and pow­er of God. Read­ing the Bible, read­ing oth­er Chris­t­ian books, or even lis­ten­ing to Chris­t­ian songs can help a lot in this respect. We must remem­ber that God is so great that by His word, He cre­at­ed the heav­ens, the earth, and the entire uni­verse.  

“The earth is the Lord’s and the full­ness there­of, the world, and they who dwell therein.”(Psalm 24:1)

 Third­ly, we must per­se­vere in faith, hope, and trust in God. He will give us every­thing we need includ­ing the grace and strength to deal with the chal­lenges of each day.

“My grace is suf­fi­cient for you …”(2 Corinthi­ans 12:9)

 Below are more quotes relat­ed to peace and trust in God:

• “Let noth­ing dis­turb you. Let noth­ing make you afraid. All things are pass­ing. God alone nev­er changes. He who has God has every­thing. Only God is enough.”          ~ St. Tere­sa of Avi­la

• “My soul finds rest in God alone; my sal­va­tion comes from Him. He alone is my rock and my sal­va­tion … my hope comes from Him … Trust in Him at all times, O peo­ple, pour out your hearts to Him, for God is our refuge.” (Psalm 62: 1,2,5,8)

May God’s Peace be with you!

Rec­om­mend­ed book: “Search­ing for and Main­tain­ing Peace of Heart”                                      by Father Jacques Phillipe