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Perfect peace and trust

“You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You. Trust in the Lord forever, for in Yah, the Lord, is everlasting strength” (Is. 26:3, 4).

God will keep us in perfect peace if something happens. I like the word, ‘perfect’. It means nothing can ruffle it, or take it away. It is solid, and sustaining. ‘Peace’. I like that word.

So, to get this perfect peace something has to happen first. It is the staying of our mind completely on God. That is what Peter did when he was walking on the waves. As long as he looked at His Lord, he was OK and could do the miraculous. But if he took just one look at the waves pitching to and fro at his side, he would start to sink. So, the trick is to focus on a mark. How do you do that? First of all, what you focus on is important. If you focus on yourself or your situation, you’ll go under. But if you focus on God, you are focusing on Someone who is all powerful, all knowing and who loves you because you are His child. Then you look up to Him and cry out for help. Keep looking up and standing fast, praying as you go. By doing this you are looking up to the only One who can save you and the situation. But this means you need to ignore your emotions as you go. That last part is very important. Why? Because of the next step – trust.

We stay our minds upon God for a reason, because we trust Him. We trust Him with whatever concerns us, having full confidence that He will come through for us in the right way when we need it. It means we don’t dictate to Him how He must do it, though we can request a certain course through prayer. But it also means we don’t trust our emotions which scream at us that we can’t trust God and should just try to save ourselves. These thoughts can be safely ignored. They are lies. Emotions are really good at lying to us.

“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind” (James 1:5,6).

Faith is what drives trust. You trust God because you believe He will come through, even when you can’t see it or feel it will be so.

Then the rest of the verse highlights this trust again:

“Trust in the Lord forever, for in Yah, the Lord, is everlasting strength” (Is 26:4).

Trusting puts you focused on the One with everlasting strength, strength to carry you through your present trial whether it is physical, relational, financial or emotional. God is equal to all.

The verses preceding this state that God had saved the Israelites from a real threat when Isaiah writes:

“For You have been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shade from the heat; for the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall” (Is. 25:4).

So Isaiah knows what he is talking about. But this trust also focuses beyond the present looking forward to a time where:

“He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces; the rebuke of His people He will take away from all the earth; For the Lord has spoken. And it will be said in that day: ‘Behold, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for Him; we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation” (Is. 25:8, 9).