Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Perfect Peace

How many of us wish we lived in "perfect peace" all the time? I know I do. Isaiah 26:3 says, "You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You." Now that's a promise! Over the past few days the Lord has been convicting me that I often allow myself to become distracted by the "cares of this world" (Mark 4:19) that easily crowd out thoughts of my Savior. Instead of continually renewing my focus on Him and devoting myself to Him "in body and spirit" (1 Cor. 7:34), I all too easily allow my focus to drift away from Him to things like homework, clinicals, and grades. 

I know that it the middle of the semester, and that this can be a difficult time with Mid-Terms and exams that just don't seem to end in Nursing School, but I want to challenge you, as I am challenging myself, to remain focused on the Lord. I was reading in My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers this morning, and Chambers challenged his readers to "use your imagination to put yourself before God" (p. 42). What he meant by that was to use your imagination (your thoughts) in a way worthy of the Lord (Phil. 4:8-9). Instead of our imagination living in a starved state because it is set on thinking about whatever our empty impulses desire, we can instead set our thoughts to contemplate the majesty and the wonder of God. Where can we look for our inspiration? The beauty of sunsets artfully painted by God, the trickling or thundering waterfall pouring over the side of a cliff, the majestic scene of mountains overlaid with clouds of water vapor, the starry host of heaven twinkling in an inky sky--these are all launching boards for our imaginations to imagine God--to consider and meditate on His power, majesty, and grace in saving us mere humans. 

When setting our mind on Christ our King and Creator, we have no reason to fear the future, to worry about what will come our way, or to think for a moment that He might not come through for us this time. Instead we can rejoice with the psalmist who realized the majesty and the wonder of God and found "perfect peace" in Him. Psalm 8:1-4, 9: "O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger. When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? . . . O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!"
 

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