Peace.
Any idea what we do to a person who has an unending obsessive compulsive drive to perform? This exhaustive attention to detail, this focus on drive, succeed, pound through to the next level, will probably get you a significant promotion in our culture. But the stress and anxiety that such drive brings can be combative to your mental well-being. It destroys Peace.
Pastor James Hein has a great article entitled, THE GOSPEL and Anxiety, on the website called Bread for Beggars. He writes about George St-Pierre, a mixed martial arts fighter who is plagued by an emotional struggle that clinicians call Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). He does not have peace.
Here is how my brain reacts when I initially read this article:
“But he’s amazingly successful! So what if he has OCD!”
Then my sympathetic side kicks in: “this is driving him crazy. He needs peace.”
We are on a search this week for that word, that great slice of the Fruit of the Spirit – peace. What is peace? Do you know what it's like to experience peace? Maybe you could better describe its antonym. I looked up the definition for “peace” in Merriam-Webster and it said, “freedom from civil disturbance.” There were more words to this definition but I was struck that the most meaningful part of its elucidating phrase was the absence of something negative. To have peace means that we must eliminate stress and anxiety or at least reduce its presence. That is what George St-Pierre was searching for.
Peace, in Hebrew is the word, Shalom (the Old Testament). It refers to being connected and completely together, unified. The opposite would be “broken apart” or “shattered.” That is translated, in the New Testament, as the word, anxious.
As we explore the topic of peace, we are fighting that incessant, sinful urge to be anxious. Anxious thoughts steal away our peace by dragging contentment down to the level of worry. We become disjointed and less peaceful when our thoughts spill over and we start listening to a broken and distracted heart. Our thoughts and emotions are getting pulled one direction and then another - we are being fractured into pieces.
The fruit of the spirit is peace. Since God exists in complete and satisfying peace, so can His children. Very few moments allow us peace in this world. But there is never a moment when God is not at peace. Nations rage and God is at peace. Bandits swipe a family’s hard earned resources; God is at peace. The world rages and crumbles; God is at peace.
I remember trying to wrap my thoughts around this concept during a particularly stressful time of my life, and I wanted that peace. Did you know God has a formula for us to have peace? In your pursuit of discipleship practices have you discovered this tool for peace? It comes in Luke 12 and Matthew 6 (Do not worry). And Paul breaks it down by saying, “Think on these things” (Philippians 4:4-9).
In the sermon text for Sunday, we also see the prescription to think: “Now set your mind and heart to seek the LORD your God” (1 Chronicles 22:19). We are to give our hearts and minds over to searching for God. And when we find Him (in the pages of Scripture) we will find Him at peace.
I’m not going to attempt any further commentary or explanation of these texts until Sunday. But for now, just consider that God has full knowledge of all those areas of concern, all tragedies and difficulties and struggles that cause the billions of people on this planet to be anxious – He knows it all and yet He is at peace. I want that! The Spirit of the Living and non-Anxious God is working in us to ground and establish that peace.
Peace to you!