1. Fight for It.
“Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.”
Hebrews 12:14
Finding peace is hard. It’s spiritual warfare. Our peace will always be under attack, and we have to do everything we can to stand firm and live peacefully with everyone. The idea of fighting for peace is challenging, but it is the way God’s Kingdom works. We need to strive for peace, especially now when there is so much division amongst families, friends, and culture as a whole.
2. Rest in the Prince of Peace.
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 4:6-7
Jesus came to give us peace — not only peace with God by dying for our sins but also a deep, heart and mind-guarding peace in the midst of trials (John 16:33).
He said, “My peace I give to you” (John 14:27). It’s ours for the taking. All we need to do is ask in faith. The faith-key that unlocks the peace that surpasses understanding is seeing Jesus as the Faithful One and resting in his ability to do what he has promised.
3. Carry Everything to God in Prayer.
Our reassurance comes from the knowledge that what God calls us to do in order to find peace is easy! It’s an easy yoke, a light burden (Matthew 11:30).
He calls us to pray.
What is prayer? What does it mean to pray?
Prayer is taking our requests to our generous heavenly Father (Luke 11:13) and trusting that he will answer with whatever we need (Philippians 4:19). Prayer is casting our anxieties onto him because he cares for us (1 Peter 5:7).
The problem is, often this easy yoke is not so easy to bear. The asking is easy, but the believing often feels impossibly hard. The struggle is trusting and believing that there is power in our prayers. That prayer works.
Prayer is the language of faith. When we have complete trust and faith in God, prayer is easy, for the most part. But when doubt weighs us down, prayer is hard and can feel like a burden rather than something peaceful and life-giving.
“Prayerlessness is the muteness of unbelief… a growing prayerful dependence on God is evidence of our growing spiritual maturity. And the more we pray in faith in everything, the more we experience the peace of God.”
John Piper.
4. Prioritize God
The problem with searching for peace is that we often try to do it on our own, relying on our own strength. We can’t force peace into our lives. When we pray and prioritize building a relationship with God, we learn to let go of our situations, thoughts, fears, and concerns. We learn to trust him to work everything together for good (Romans 8:28). Maybe our specific issue doesn’t work out the way we want. Maybe we have to walk a hard and tragic path. But despite it all, we can experience God’s peace because we believe and rest in the knowledge that a sovereign Lord has it all under control even if it makes no sense to us, especially when it makes no sense.
Robyn Roste writes, “Peace as a Fruit of the Spirit is best described as beyond comprehension. It’s something we all want and need, but it’s not something we can pick up or learn.”
Peace is a gift from the Holy Spirit and comes to us when we’re at our weakest, when we stop relying on our own strength and allow God to work in us. It’s in this place the Apostle Paul could write with confidence these words from death row, “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:10)
It’s this upside-down logic that brings us to a place of joy in hard times. A joyful peace that is only possible because we’ve been made right with God through faith in Jesus Christ. “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Romans 5:1)
Now let go and trust God. That is the only way to find true and lasting peace.