OPINION: Peace and rest
Is it just me or does the world seem to be a scary place? I watched the volcano erupt in Hawaii, which was cool and scary. Did you see the images from the recent plane crash in India? Last year we had terrible flooding in western North Carolina, and we are now starting a new hurricane season; do we need to be concerned?
There are a number of wars going on around the world that are scary. The war between Russia and Ukraine has been going on for three years. Few people realize that India and Pakistan are fighting each other. Israel has been fighting with the Palestinians and now they are engaging in a war with Iran. I would hate to live in a war zone.
The humanitarian needs are growing daily around the world with many people unable to find food and shelter. Did you hear about the assignations and the attempted assignations up in Minnesota? I am beginning to wonder if the whole world has gone crazy! We are lucky and blessed to be living in America where most of us can meet our daily needs for food, shelter, and have a general sense that we are safe.
Yet many of us fail to live with a sense of peace. It is hard to feel peace when so many in our world are suffering. I believe most people want to get up and go to work, come home and have dinner, watch some TV with their family, and go to sleep in their own beds. People crave the routines that many of us want to escape when we take our summer vacations to the beach or the mountains.
I know we need to be aware of things that are happening in our world today. We need to be up on the news, but we need to learn to limit our intake of news and breathe. Feeding our minds all that bad news is going to give all of us anxiety and fill us with depression. Awareness is one thing but allowing ourselves to be overwhelmed is something entirely different.
I have been encouraging my Sunday school class to turn off their TV. There are some great and wonderful things happening all the time that the news will not tell you. For example, last year after the terrible floods in the mountains I know relatives and neighbors who went up and helped people who were suffering. No one knows when someone reaches out to help a neighbor or elderly person. People like you and me do kind and nice things to help others all the time, but there aren’t reporters out there putting that on the evening news.
Jesus tells us that if we are feeling overwhelmed by our circumstances or the world around us to come to Him and He will give us rest. Philippians 4 tells us not to be anxious about anything but to pray to God with thanksgiving. If we do that, He promises to give us His perfect peace. We are further challenged to consider our meditations and to think about good and beautiful things. God will help us, but we have to do our part.
God’s peace is available to all of us. We have to read and meditate on His word. We also have to go to Him in our prayers and lay our burdens down. The trouble is we want to pick those burdens up when we leave His presence. We have trust Him with our problems, our families, our jobs, our homes, our cars, our communities, our nation, and our world. We need to look for the good and beauty around us. We need to seek Him with our hearts and minds. We have to make room in our minds for His peace.
I want to encourage you to be aware of what is going on in the world but not to let it overwhelm you. We serve a great big God who remains in control in spite of what things may look like to us. Release your burdens to Him and accept the gift of His perfect peace. No matter what is troubling you, He can and will help if you let Him. It may not work out the way we think it should but we have to trust Him with all the details. When we can take the steps of trusting Him and believing in His goodness, we can find the peace that we all need. I speak the PEACE of Christ to you…to your heart, to your mind, and to your spirit. Receive it! Now rest in it!
Contact Doug Creamer at PO Box 777, Faith, NC 28041 or doug@dougcreamer.com.