The Peace of God

“And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

This is the glorious effect of a life of prayer. Whatever else it brings, it brings the peace of God to keep our heart and mind. It preserves a tranquillity of spirit and that rest of soul which is more to us than all external circumstances or temporal blessings. The peace of God means a great deal more than peace with God or even peace from God. It is nothing less than the very heart of God so transfused into our heart that we enter into its perfect rest and enjoy His own deep, divine, and unutterable peace. It is the very peace which He Himself enjoys as He dwells in the eternal calm above the changes and uncertainties of time and the tumults of earthly strife, unmoved as the sun and stars of heaven by the clouds of the firmament, or as the deep bosom of the sea by the billows which foam upon its breast. It is the peace which Jesus had when He slept amid the Galilean storm; when He stood unmoved in the dark night of His betrayal amid the horrors of His crucifixion, saying to them, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

It is described as “the peace which surpasses all understanding.” It is not explained by human reasoning or by our surrounding circumstances. It is not the rest of the Stoic as he calmly weighs the questions of life and sets his mind, with resolute indifference, to meet its changing circumstances in calm fortitude and unconcern. It is not the Nirvana of the Buddhist, a sort of self-annihilation, a peace which comes from the blunting of every sensibility and the suppression of every sensitive feeling. It is not the peace which is reasoned out and reached from the conclusions of our own judgment and the hopes and prospects of a brighter day; for it is often most profound and satisfying when everything around us seems most forbidding and full of danger. It is a peace which we cannot understand ourselves, and we often wonder how our hearts are so still and sweet when we, under mere human influences, would have been distracted with anxiety and fear. How often have we risen from our knees in some hour of peril or perplexity with a rest so deep and so divine that we ourselves have been surprised at the grace that could sustain us in the darkest hour, when we had broken down so completely.

This peace of God shall keep our hearts and minds. It fills our whole inner being. Every capacity for thought and feeling is kept in perfect peace; not even a wandering thought or troubled imagination shall be permitted to drive our little ship from its anchorage of peace. This is not presented as something we are to produce, but as a promise of God’s abundant grace. Our part is to refuse to be anxious and to rest upon it and to bring everything to Him in prayer and praise. His part is to flood the spirit with His eternal rest, and by its fulness keep our heart and mind in everlasting peace. If we are right in our spirit, everything else will be made right in our life by our faithful God, and t we need not even be concerned about the things around us, but only careful to abide in Him in peace and trust. It is not necessary for Him to give us assurance that He will feed and clothe us. For “your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.” The only thing that is necessary is that we do not worry about these things, but rather “. . . seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,” The promise, therefore, to the life of prayer is that it will keep our spirit in a state of peaceful rest, which itself carries with it the pledge of every other blessing.

Sometimes you have seen a ferry across a country river, formed by an old scow pulled back and forth across the stream by drawing upon a rope which spanned the river from shore to shore, and which was so securely fastened at each end that all you had to do was to stand upon the scow and draw upon the rope. This did not bring the shore across the river to you, but it brought you to the other shore. And so the spirit of prayer, even if it did not bring God to us (and surely “The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth.”), but it brings us to God and so pervades the spirit with His peace and rest, that it would have been blessing enough to repay its prayer if there were no other blessing in the answer itself.

It was while our blessed Lord was praying that His countenance was transfigured, and His whole being shone with the glory of the heavenly world. So, prayer is still able to transfigure life; and if the face does not always shine with the glory of the Lord, yet the heart forgets its griefs and fears and rises from the still hour sustained, refreshed, restored, victorious, and “strong in the Lord and in the power of His might” for all the burdens and conflicts of the way.

When faith has triumphed in the trial, see! we find that the answer of God’s providence has followed close upon the victory of grace; the trials and temptations have gone; the clouds have rolled away, and the world around us is transformed as much as the heart has been transfigured within.

Beloved, let us go forth to dwell “in the secret place of the Most High, and abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” So shall we be kept in every trial and delivered out of every difficulty, and the promise true: “Because you have made the Lord, who is my refuge, even the Most High, your habitation, no evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling.” “Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him on high, because he has known My name. He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and bring him to honour. With long life I will satisfy him and show him My salvation.”