Aching for Perfect Peace

“You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.” – Isaiah 26:3

Your mind is the essence of a conscious, thinking you! You think, you perceive, you converse, you feel, you hurt, you enjoy, you love, you hate, you ignore, all through the mechanism and the workings of your mind. The nerves, muscles, tissues, and bones of your body are necessary elements to feeling, but it is your mind alone which tells you what is happening, what is. The mind connects body and soul. In fact, it is the mind which expresses the soul, gives your soul voice. Without the existence and activity of the mind your body is a non-directed, inactive, connected mass of tissue and bones that will fade and die. Your mind is you; housed in a human flesh and blood body, both marvelously made (Psalm 139).
Mind peace is the critical element of your health! Even if your body is wracked with cancer, peace of mind raises you above the dismal fray and allows you to walk strong in spirit, yes, even soar like an eagle. This is not pie in the sky, artificial feel-good-ism. Peace of mind is the essential element of true happiness. Yet perfect peace of mind is easier hoped for, than attained. Though sought for through every contrivance imagined by man, seeking the answer solely from the Maker is too often a last resort, or simply no seeking at all.
It is not mere peace you should be after, but what the Bible holds out to you and calls: perfect peace! That is, a peace which lasts, an unshakeable peace, peace in the eye of the storm, peace which never fails to satisfy. The most difficult thing about real life is being broadsided by the unexpected. Sustaining peace of mind when your world turns upside down is the true test of whether or not a “perfect peace” inhabits your mind, characterizes your soul.
The young men who come and live at the Paul Anderson Youth Home do not exhibit peace in their lives. They hunger for it. You see it all over them. In fact, seeking for peace they have been attracted to drugs and addictions. But such only drives them on and on in a real death spiral as nothing about addictions ever provide peace; only destruction. There is a drivenness to try a little bit or, yes, a big bit, of everything in the world all the while hungering for peace, that is, what actually satisfies. Believe it or not, the peace for which they seek is really quite near them; a lot nearer than they think. The Scriptures say God is nearer than we realize. The God of peace is actually but a step of faith from mind and heart.
This “near-God” according to the Scripture is the source to finding perfect peace, peace arising from a mind stayed on Him in the face of Jesus Christ. Hebrews 12 sets the right posture and the laser focus of the eyes of your mind and heart. Mind, because you can become unassailably fixed in your thinking, and heart, because you can come to desperately love Him. The corner of your eye frequently catches the flash of distractions which take your eye off the prize, the Lord Jesus. Perfect peace is too often squandered, drawn away by a myriad of temptations from out of the world. Many seemingly attractive things misdirect you from a fixation on Jesus and His words. But this fixation on Jesus is exactly what is necessary for perfect peace. And there will be no fixation in your mind unless you completely trust in the God who alone gives such peace.
Trust is essential. It is a trust which eschews any temptation to draw your eyes away; because He fills your life so completely you do not want any other offered substitute. Experience with substitutes always leads to eventual disappointment because they fail to provide an answer over and over. You come to know beyond a shadow of doubt that substitutes are simply worthless. Your trust of Him must become sacred. Genuine trust does not allow the intrusion of any alleged equal. There is no such thing.
This is why your mind must be stayed on Him. Trust Him! The result? Perfect peace!

“Jesus, my all in all thou art; my rest in toil, my ease in pain, the medicine of my broken heart, in war my peace, in loss my gain, my smile beneath the tyrant’s frown, in shame my glory and my crown.”
(3rd verse of Charles Wesley’s hymn, “Thou Hidden Source of Calm Repose,” 1749)