Peace That Stills Us

-


“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives.” — John 14:27

The other night, I was so exhausted after a very long day, and wanted nothing more than to go to bed. I slid under my covers with a sigh, anticipating that I'd drift off soon. 

But then my mind started racing, and I couldn't shut it off.  I was fretting over circumstances I couldn't control, worried about finances, and selling my house, and I also had a lot of thoughts swirling about work that needed to be done.  

I tossed and turned for a couple of hours, and then decided to get a snack and turn on the TV to watch some mindless television.  

At one point, I remember thinking, "I just want some peace."  That thought kept repeating in my head, over and over.  

Peace is not the absence of conflict or noise. Biblical peace—shalom—is wholeness, alignment, the settling of the soul into the reality of God’s presence. It is what steadies us when circumstances swirl, and chaos threatens to undo us.

Jesus spoke these words on the brink of betrayal, denial, abandonment, and the cross. He was not promising quiet circumstances but quiet hearts—hearts rooted in the certainty of God. “My peace,” He says—not something we manufacture, but something gifted, breathed, bestowed.

In this season, we long for peace. We hope for quiet moments, reconciled relationships, less anxiety, and fewer headlines that shake us. 

Yet Advent peace is not contingent on conditions. It is born in unlikely places—like a barn outside Bethlehem while a nervous couple listens to a newborn’s cry.

The shepherds heard peace proclaimed to them while fields still lay under Roman control. Mary pondered peace while navigating stigma and uncertainty. Joseph received peace in a dream before a scandal-filled announcement to his community.

Peace is something God speaks over us before we see its fruit. It is both promise and presence—not earned, but given. It is not fragile; it is formative. It does not deny the storm but steadies us within it.

Where are you longing for peace today? What voices disturb your inner stillness—fear, grief, conflict, exhaustion, or the relentless pace of expectations? The peace of Christ meets us there—not to remove the storm but to hold us in it.

Advent invites us to breathe deeply, to trust that Emmanuel—God with us—is enough. Peace is not immunity from trouble but intimacy with God. It is knowing that in Christ, nothing is wasted, and nothing is beyond redemption. His peace does not ask us to pretend; it asks us to trust.

Let His peace still you today.

Prayer

Prince of Peace, speak Your quiet into our restlessness. Teach us to receive the peace You give rather than striving for our own. In our waiting, our worries, and our weariness, remind us that You are with us. Settle our minds, soften our spirits, and let Your peace rule our hearts. Amen.

Reflection Questions

  1. What circumstances or thoughts most disturb your peace right now?

  2. How can you practice receiving Christ’s peace rather than trying to earn it?

  3. Where do you sense God inviting you to trust Him more deeply today?


Comments

Post a Comment

Thanks for leaving a comment! If you comment Anonymously, your comment will summarily be deleted.

Popular posts from this blog

Rich Mullins' Life & Legacy

-
Image
Rich Mullins was among the most influential Christian musical artists in the 80s and 90s.  His songs Awesome God  and Step by Step  were staples in the early 90s for worship bands in churches with "contemporary" worship services.  His songs have been recorded by artists like Amy Grant, Caedmon's Call, Jars of Clay, and others.    After spending years at the pinnacle of success as a popular Christian artist, Mullins became fed up with the Christian music industry and evangelical Christianity.   He moved to a Navajo reservation to teach music to kids and to work on projects near and dear to his heart like his collaboration with like-minded artists in the Ragamuffin Band.  Someone asked him if he moved to the reservation to proselytize the Navajo, and Mullins emphatically told them he wasn't.  In fact, he said that he was hoping to find Jesus there among them.  Mullins was tragically killed in 1997 in a car accident on the way to a ben...
Read more

Rapha & Yada - "Be Still & Know": Reimagined

-
Image
One of the most well-used verses in the Bible comes to us from Psalm 46:10, which reads like this:  He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;     I will be exalted among the nations,     I will be exalted in the earth.” That one line---"Be still, and know that I am God"---finds its way into greeting cards, wall art, church signs and the like.  And it sounds so nice, doesn't it?  But what does it actually mean ? What does it mean to be still  and know  that God is God?  Well, to dig deeper into that phrase to see what it's really saying, I'm going to have to bust out some Hebrew--so, don't hold it against me. The Hebrew word that's used here for the phrase "be still" is the word  rapha. And get this... It means "to hang limp, sink down, be feeble."  That's a heckuva lot different than what we usually take the phrase "be still" to mean, right? I don't know about you, but whenever I have heard that verse ...
Read more

The Lord Needs It: Lessons From A Donkey

-
Image
This Sunday is Palm Sunday---the beginning of Holy Week. It's also one of those Sundays when you can't ignore the church calendar and just preach whatever you want.  I am sure that some people do just that, but they probably aren't Presbyterian, and I am sure that the liturgical rhythm of the Church is not first and foremost in their mind. And they probably have had no trouble at all working on their sermon this week. I'm not one to blindly follow tradition, but there are some things that you just don't do---and you can't just ignore  the story of Jesus' Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.   But this leads to a bit of a quandary...  In the short time I have been doing this whole preaching thing I have gone through the Palm Sunday story a few times.  After a while you sort of wonder if your congregation has heard your Palm Sunday riff a few too many times. That sermon needs to get preached, though.  While we celebrate the che...
Read more