Peace that surpasses understanding.
All over the world governments are trying to create peace. Some try to attain it through war, others through elections and some through development. Still peace is elusive and some of the best efforts man has come up with has gloriously failed to attain what they are looking for. This has created a mindset that we need to find the reason and try something else. The peace that man is looking for is never found in self-effort or even in having enough. Peace is a person and He is called the Prince of peace. He has a kingdom that is from another world and a kingdom that operates with a different set of rules. His peace does not remove a storm but protects us during the storm. His peace does not call for understanding but requires us to trust.
Phil. 4:7 And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
We read in the Bible that God wants us to have the peace that surpasses understanding. In itself this concept is alien to what we do most of the time. Any crisis we face, we have the need to want to know the “why?”
We are geared towards making sense of things. Anything we cannot explain makes us feel like a fish out of water. As husbands we feel the need to be able to explain why it happened. It gives us a sense of control if we can tell you the “why.” It just makes sense to understand something. I remember when our daughter was about two years old and after every answer we would give her she would ask “why?” We are born to gather information and learn to survive in our environment.
The kingdom is counter-active to our understanding. The kingdom is not from this world. We run into problems when we try to understand a Spiritual Kingdom with an earthly mentality. The things of the kingdom of God do not make sense and neither can you explain it with natural understanding. Paul prays that we will receive spiritual understanding in the things of God. This kind of understanding comes when we surrender our need to be in control.
Eph. 1:18 The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints
To have the peace of God we must give up our right to want to understand in a natural or carnal sense. A lot of people struggle and loose heart or even faith because the refuse to give up their understanding about the dealings of God in their life. To have His peace you need to surrender the need to have to explain what God is doing with and through you. If you can explain what God is doing in and through you He is not doing something great. My prayer is that God will do something so great that we will not be able to explain it, and have peace about it.
Do you want this today? Do you want to allow Him to be a God that is bigger than what you can explain? Are you willing to surrender the need to be in control? Then you are qualified to have His peace, the peace that will guard your heart and mind.
