peace (noun): freedom from disturbance; tranquility; a state in which there is no war or a war has ended
This week, the Holy Spirit has been teaching me about peace, nudging me to focus on peace, the Lord of peace, the Prince of Peace. If I am being honest, I have struggled with this because I get anxious so quickly and it's hard for me to be still. With it being the beginning of a new month, the beginning of the end of the year, I am taking heed and focusing on my peace. I have always prayed for the peace of God that surpasses all understanding and this evening, as I reflected on the peace of God, I found myself wondering about how Jesus called peace in the midst of the storm.
You see, when the wind and sea were raging, the bible says that Jesus rebuked them. He called out, "peace, be still" (Mark 4:39). What the Holy Spirit ministered to me earlier in the week is that we already have our peace, in the midst of a stormy situation. That peace is always there because we are children of God; children of Jehovah Shalom. When Gideon saw the angel of the Lord and named the meeting place Yahweh-Shalom, he was calling forth peace even before the war began. We know that at some points in our lives, we are engaged in some form of a battle, and in some cases, that peace comes in the midst of the fiercest battle! As believers, the one thing we need to focus on is that peace. We need to call it forth and rebuke the storms of our lives.
The Mighty Warrior, Jehovah Shalom, we serve, is the keeper of our peace and therefore needs to be our focus in whatever situation. Now, just because peace sounds like a tranquil word doesn't mean it's found in the calm - it's very often found in extreme situations and that's why you need the Prince of Peace to find true peace. What the Holy Spirit ministered to me was that Jesus was referring to the wind and the sea as peace. Ordinarily, the wind and seas are calm, until there is a storm when they take another form. When your life starts to take the form of a storm, you need to rebuke that storm and declare peace over it! The Lord of peace is not a gentle pushover who waits for the storm to end. He is a warrior who fights to restore peace. The bible says that the kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violence take by it by force (Matthew 11:12). As a daughter of Jehovah Shalom, I'm entering this week declaring "Peace, be still" to every storm in my life and I encourage you to make that same declaration as you read this post.
God bless