03 Dec Reclaiming Our Peace

Reclaiming Our Peace

“I just want to be peaceful, Mama.” Me too, baby, me too. “I just want to be peaceful”  is Penny speak for “I just need to curl up on the couch with you and read a book,” or “I need be alone in my room for a few minutes.” As our family recovers from a harrowing cross-country trip on the heels of five weeks of collective illness, I’ve been whispering the same phrase to the Lord in my prayers. I just want to be peaceful, especially as Advent begins.

Satan, however, would like nothing more than to sabotage our Christmas peace. The other day, this brilliant phrase came out of my mentor’s mouth, “The holidays provide fresh material for the Enemy.” Truth. Travel, hosting guests, complex family dynamics, extra expenses, and heightened expectations – often uncommunicated – can easily provide a recipe for internal and external strife. Yet Thanksgiving exists for the corporate expression of gratitude and Christmas exists to celebrate the arrival of our Redeemer. Sounds like a time for peace to reign!

How do we redeem this season and guard our hearts from the onslaught of the Enemy? He wants nothing more than to steal our joy, especially during this time of year, when he knows the dissonance between what we want to feel and what we actually feel will be particularly painful.

Here are three practices that are helping me this holiday season:

1.) Rebuke a Critical Spirit

While traveling, this powerful reminder came up in my daily devotional:

Discipleship is built entirely on the supernatural grace of God. Walking on the water is easy … but walking on dry land as a disciple of Jesus Christ is a different thing. We do not need the grace of God to stand crises, human nature and pride are sufficient, we can face the strain magnificently; but it does require the supernatural grace of God to live twenty-four hours in every day as a saint, to go through the drudgery as a disciple, to live an ordinary, unobserved, ignored existence as a disciple of Jesus … We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things, to be holy in mean streets, among mean people, and this is not learned in five minutes.  – My Utmost for His Highest (October 21)

Here, the definition of “mean” is more expansive than simply unkind. “Mean” as an adjective is defined as anything or anyone “offensive, selfish, unaccommodating, nasty, stingy, small-minded, low in status, or of little importance.” “Mean” encompasses all of our irritations, our subtle feelings of superiority, and our critical thoughts. We are called to be holy in all of these mean circumstances and among mean people, no easy task.

Like he says, this is not learned in five minutes, but one useful practice is to rebuke a critical spirit. When I find myself entertaining a critical thought loop, I have to pull a hard stop to escape the downward spiral. I say, out loud, “Lord, I repent of this critical spirit. Help me to see this person or situation as you see them. Satan, I command this spirit of criticism to go and not return in the name of Jesus. Amen.”

2.) Remember There Are Many Ways of Being

Ok, this is so elementary that it seems silly writing it, but this tiny phrase really helps me. There are many ways of being. Shockingly, I don’t have a monopoly on the right way to do things. My opinion isn’t truth, and I can learn a lot from the way other people approach life and relationships. Different isn’t bad. Differences cultivate humility. When I’m having a hard time with someone else’s approach, whether it’s how they want to tackle a kitchen full of dirty dishes or how they want to look for a job (which is really none of my business anyway), I think to myself, “There are many ways of being.” It’s cheesy, but it works!

3.) Go Back and Pick Up Your Peace

A few weeks ago, I listened to this sermon by Bill Johnson A Lifestyle of Peace. He recommended a practice of going back to the moment where you surrendered your peace and picking it back up again. Think of yourself as a peace detective. If God’s mercies to us are new each morning, then peace is ours for the day until we decide to surrender it to our Enemy. Peace doesn’t mean perfect tranquility, although I could definitely use some of that. Peace is a deep reservoir of wellbeing, it’s a sense of being right with God and at rest even in the midst of chaos. He himself is our peace (Ephesians 2:14).

My husband and I joke that changing the poopy diaper of a screaming, wriggling infant and getting him back into clothes should be part of Navy Seal training because it’s so stressful. It’s hard to feel peaceful when a bunch of little people are yelling at you, but I’m believing on faith it can be done and I’m working toward that goal. Still, we often surrender our peace to lesser evils- running 10 minutes late at the beginning at the day, a stack of bills piling up, a weird interaction with a friend. Whenever you find you’ve lost your peace, trace back through your thoughts until you find where you surrendered it, repent, and claim peace in the name of Jesus.

And the disciples went and woke Him, saying, “Lord, save us, we are going to die!” He said to them, “Why are you afraid, you men of little faith?” Then He got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was at once a great and wonderful calm, a perfect peacefulness (Matthew 8:25-26 AMP).

Merry Christmas!