Peace...because of who He is

  Do not be anxious about anything.  Ha!  Can you imagine?  Not ever being anxious for ANYTHING?  It's for real.  No joke.  When we come to joy in Him and the realization deep down in the soul - permanently that He is near and that He is good and that He is for us, and that He is ALMIGHTY Creator of all the ends of the earth for whom NOTHING is too difficult....then, really, what do we have to be anxious about anyway?  Supreme joy is ours in Him and He hears our prayers. When we cry out to Him, when we lay before Him our needs, our anguish, our future, our families, our relationships, our desires and hopes, He hears.  In Psalms David says: "Because He bends down to listen, I will pray as long as I have breath.  We can even thank Him in advance of our eyes seeing the fulfillment because we really can have that much confidence, peace in His goodness and sovereignty. If you really lay it all out there and realize to Whom you are speaking and how much He loves you, then laying it all down there at the seat of Mercy, the place from which proceeded by simple words the world and planets that immediately danced in orbit at His command...if He is for us, who or what circumstance can move or shake us or cause us to fear?  Why tremble before lesser things when He stands behind us and goes before us?  This becomes God's gift of peace that doesn't make sense to all the world but is like a sentry hemming us in, not to cage us but to set us free from the anxiety that would bind us up.  Peace that reminds us who we are and more Who's we are.  It quiets our hearts and stills the questions in our minds, the racing, the what-ifs. 

  And as we grow in faith, as we see and walk in what's Real and not the fake, fearful imagination of our own hearts or even the pain of what could be, what was, what is right now, anxiety loses it's power.  We become fully His, surrendered.  He can bring in a thousand interruptions to our day and we begin to see them not as interruptions but as the day He has given, the interactions He desires for us, which may look very different from our own agenda.  He can even bring in loss, cloud our vision of the future, allow family or friends to turn against us, and if He is for us, upholding us, weeping with us, we can know that this too will turn out for His glory and our good.
  This path, this unshakeable faith, this peace sets our minds free from ruminating on all the what-ifs and what could be or should be and allows us to think on what is true, what right now, right here is lovely, worthy of honor and awe, of sitting up and taking notice and then declaring it to an onlooking world.  It centers us on what is pure rather than tainted by self-interest. And with God as judge and adjudicator of what is, we know it will be just and right.  Do you see something of excellence?  Put your focus there, dwell on that. It takes practice.  It takes walking it out one baby step at a time, one faith-step at a time, coming into agreement with what is rather than what could be and embracing it.  Then, no question, peace will be the banner under which you live, the shoes that give surety to your step, the sweet gentleness that passes from your lips.

Phil 4:4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. 5 Let your reasonableness,  gentleness, moderation, considerateness, be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; 6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. 9 What you have learned[e] and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

He leadeth me! O blessed thought,
O words with heav’nly comfort fraught;
Whate’er I do, where’er I be,
Still ’tis Christ’s hand that leadeth me.
  He leadeth me! He leadeth me!
By His own hand He leadeth me;
His faithful follower I would be,
  For by His hand He leadeth me.
2
Sometimes ’mid scenes of deepest gloom,
Sometimes where Eden’s bowers bloom,
By waters still, o’er troubled sea,
Still ’tis His hand that leadeth me.
3
Lord, I would clasp Thy hand in mine,
Nor ever murmur or repine;
Content, whatever lot I see,
Since it is Thou that leadest me.
4
And when my task on earth is done,
When, by Thy grace, the vict’ry’s won,
E’en death’s cold wave I will not flee,
Since Thou in triumph leadest me.
Story behind the hymn
Hymn: Dated but good