I have been working on memorizing Colossians 3:12-17. Every morning during my devotions I have read and repeated these verses. The other day I was going over these verses for probably the 100th time and one word in verse 15 jumped out at me. That word was “let”. I am sure that the Lord spoke to me and reminded me that in order to have His peace we had to LET him work.
We can beg and plead with God to give us peace; but, when we insist on rerunning in our minds all the possibilities of things that could go wrong and all the things that have gone wrong in the past we will not have peace. No where in scripture does God promise to zap us with peace just because we asked for it. In fact Psalm 34:14 and I Peter 3:11 tell us that we are to “seek peace and pursue it.” Doesn’t that sound like we are responsible for working toward peace of mind?
It is so easy to ask God to give us peace of mind then finish praying and go right back to worrying about all the little details that we can’t seem to control. Lately I have been convicted through my reading that worry is a sin and just like any sin we must learn to confess it and ask the Lord to help us overcome this sin. It is up to us to control where our thoughts go. The Bible tells us that we are the sum total of what we concentrate on (Proverbs 23:7). Our Heavenly Father even gives us a list of what we should allow our minds to dwell on in Philippians 4:8. When we start to panic or worry we should ask ourselves, “Is this true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, of good repute?”. These are the things that we should allow our minds to dwell on. Whatever will bring praise and glory to God will result in the peace that He promises us in His word.
Let me encourage you to ask the Lord to help you to overcome the temptation of the devil to repeat all your worries throughout the day. Instead make a list of all those things that are good and lovely in your life and start repeating them to yourself when you are tempted to worry over something that you can’t control anyway. I want to “LET” God give me peace. Do you?
Ministering Designer 