Follow Peace

          As a little girl I memorized Psalm 23. Most good little Christian girls I knew did. I could stand there and recite that passage in King James with the best of them. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” My problem was, since I memorized it in the King James Version I was very confused. I couldn’t understand why the Lord was my Shepherd, but I didn’t want Him. This puzzled me for quite some time. Now I usually read it in the New Living Translation and it makes more sense to me- The Lord is my shepherd; I have all that I need. I now know that it means I won’t be in want, not that I won’t want Him. I love the next few verses in this passage.   

Psalm 23:2-3 “He lets me rest in green meadows; he leads me beside peaceful streams. He renews my strength. He guides me along right paths, bringing honor to his name.”

            These verses are a source of hope to me. Seems like every season I am in, I find a way to be extremely busy. Right now I am a wife, mom, have a full time job, and am a pastor’s wife among some other projects I feel led to work on. If I am not careful, I can let myself get extremely overwhelmed and lose my peace. I have always been a yes girl or people pleaser I guess you could say. I want to do everything I can to make everyone around me as happy as I can. This means, if someone asks me to do something- I would say yes. Even if I had a hundred other things to do, the answer was yes. I thought it was what God expected of me. I am supposed to love other people and I wanted God’s love, and in my mind the only way to get the approval and acceptance of God and others was to work myself to the bone until I could be worthy of their love and acceptance.

            Needless to say, when I was living my life like this, I had absolutely no peace. I would read verses on peace and sing about peace, but couldn’t understand why in the world I had absolutely no peace in my life. I would read Psalm 29:11 that says that the Lord gives His people strength. The Lord blesses them with peace, and I would cry out to God to please give me His strength and peace. I would just cry and beg for His peace and I couldn’t understand why He wouldn’t give it to me.

            I finally started to see some clues as to why He “wouldn’t” give me peace. Isaiah 26:3 says, “You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you.” When I was so busy pleasing people and working so hard to please God I wasn’t really fixing my thoughts on Him. I was too tired and too sidetracked to truly think about God except to think ‘I hope I am doing enough to earn His love’. I thought I did have my thoughts fixed on Him when I was worrying about whether or not I was doing enough. It wasn’t that He wouldn’t give me peace, it was that I wouldn’t take the time out of all of my busyness to find peace. Psalm 34:14 says that we need to search for peace. I wanted it to fall in my lap thinking that God would just wave the magic peace wand and I would be able to live my life the way I wanted and peace would just naturally fall on me.

            When I read Psalm 23:2-3, I didn’t really stop and think about what it said- I just wanted that place of rest and peace. It says that God lets me rest in green meadows, and he leads me by peaceful streams. It doesn’t say he makes me rest in green meadows or drags me to the peaceful streams. I have to do my part in order to get the rest and peace that He desires for me. One thing we really need to do to have more peace, is to simplify our lives.

            Life gets hectic. We do not have to plan for it to happen, we just wake up and if we aren’t careful, we just jump into the day head first and don’t come up for air until we get in bed, and even then we are still trying to figure out what just happened. People always need us, work always has to be done, things always need to be cleaned- so what do we do? We need to start out each day with a chance to breathe. Take time to talk to God and allow Him to lead you beside the peaceful streams and guide you along the right paths. Just because someone asks us to do something, does not mean we need to say yes. We need to pray and seek God to see if it is wisdom for us to do things. We need to set up boundaries. We need to ask ourselves a few questions before we do anything.

              One question to ask yourself is, “Is this something only I can do?” You need to do things that only you can do first. Only you can be a wife to your husband and only you can be a mom to your kids (or husband/dad). Behind God, these two relationships take top priority. No one else’s needs should come before the needs of your family. One time several years ago, a friend noticed I was spreading myself too thin and she told me to look at what I was doing as a plate of food. I only have one plate to give and if I keep taking pieces of it and giving it to everyone else first and then feed my family last, I have nothing left to give them. My husband and my children need to be my top priority. That does not mean that I have to wait on them hand and foot and give them everything that they want in life, but it does mean I should give them the best of my energy, love, and time.

            Another question to ask is if this activity honors God? If you are doing things that you know are not honoring God, then do you really need it filling your schedule? If you have people constantly wanting you to do things with and for them, but the things they want you to do are not even godly activities is it worth the time and energy it takes to do it? I am not saying that you shouldn’t have fun, or shouldn’t do anything if it isn’t directly related to God and His Word, but if you are constantly going out with friends and participating in activities that take you away from God instead of drawing nearer to Him, how do you expect to have peace? When you realize you are getting stressed out, you need to make sure and set boundaries with the people in your life. It is hard to say no because we don’t want to hurt the feelings of others, but you are not responsible for their feelings. You are responsible to be a light to them, to love them like Jesus did, but not to try and make them ok.

            If you aren’t sure if you are following peace, look at your calendar and your bank account. If your calendar is full of things that leave you stressed out and so busy you can’t think, then you are probably not honoring God with your time. If you look at your bank account, and you are living pay check to pay check and spending money on things people expect you to spend money on- maybe even things you don’t want to spend money on, chances are you are not following peace in your finances. I know it is hard to follow peace. As I began writing this devotional, I had several things come up and it delayed me in even writing this. In only one 24 hour period, I had major computer issues at work which put me behind, I had to take a child to the ER in the middle of the night (they are fine by the way), the window broke on my car as I was going down the road, I ripped the pants I was wearing, and I am pretty sure I had several other stressors as well. Whenever I don’t get a devotional finished when I want, I usually get really stressed and start to feel guilty, but this time I realized my family needed me, my church needed me to do some things, and even work needed me- so I made a conscious decision to not allow myself to let guilt steal my peace. Following after peace has to be a decision we make- usually daily. I hope that you will take time and make a choice to follow peace in your life. Choose to let God lead you by the streams of peaceful waters and rest in the green pastures.