“The
Lord gives His people strength; the Lord blesses His people with peace.” Psalms
29:11
The
Lord’s strength for His people is His peace imparted to them at all times. It
is a peace that never leaves or forsakes, no matter the situation. In the bible,
this has been the presence of the Lord. Where the presence of God was in the
bible, there His presence also resided. The strength was the presence of God
empowering them with peace to continue to press forward to the promised land in
the midst of adversity. It was the peace that comforted them that someone
bigger than them and their enemy was watching over them. About two years ago, I
went to the “Badlands” of Philadelphia on a mission trip to help and minister
to those in the area. Upon arriving there, needles, alcohol bottles, broken
glass, littered the streets and sidewalks. Where drugs could be bought within
only a few meters of wherever you were at and prostitutes were as easy to find
as candy is a candy shop. Needless to say, it was an eye opening experience to
a culture of evil I have never witnessed before. However, even though there was
serious danger of violence from gangs and pimps with broken glass and needles
everywhere, my heart was not in fear, oddly enough, to those things that were
around me. This peace was solidified in me when, as my group was walking on a
decaying street with dilapidated buildings all around, a white dove flew and
stopped on top of a building right next to us. As we stared at it, it was
staring at us, giving us a peace and a manifest reality of the presence of God
going with us even in a place of uncertainty and danger. Upon meditating on
this, I found that even though peace is a fruit of the spirit, true peace
(which is the place of complete inner stillness of the body, soul, and mind)
can only be given not made. Even the reference that the bible makes implies that
the seed for which the fruit of peace comes from is given not earned or made.
Too many times we get caught in the trap of trying to make and control our own
twisted peace, when instead, we ought to receive and grab onto the peace of
God. The greatest blessing, it seems, that could be given to men is that of an
infinite peace. This peace can be summed by a statement made by a Prophet of
the Old Testament Bible, “Those who trust in the Lord will renew their
strength; they will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow
weary; they will walk and not faint.”
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