What Peace Is Like in Our Honest, Everyday Lives

Maybe peace is what I’m seeking out here where sun rises over a steeple and fog rests airy on pastures and fences run parallel. I swat away a fly and snap another picture. These humid, still-hot Kentucky mornings smell of earth and outdoors, and I’m as dry as we were the summer I spent in Thailand.

It’s quiet, both inside and outside my head. Muted are the pressures to produce and please. I’m not thinking in steps or miles or minutes. Time and word count are irrelevant. To-do’s can wait.

I hear only the worship song I’ve got on repeat, the dull thud of my own footsteps, and the chirrup of cheerful birds. It’s a respite from the exhaustion that comes from caring too much about what’s not yours to prove, procure, or control.

Are you longing for soul rest too? Grace that holds? Peace that lasts?

Let’s name it together.

What Peace Is

Peace isn’t an escape, but an invitation to be held in the great arms of God so you can see from the same slant. It’s wrap-around closeness. The vantage point of proximity, so we can borrow His vision.

Sometimes peace is a hug and sometimes it’s breeze on your back as you stand on a bridge over a busy road you traverse often. It’s simply presence. God with us.

Peace is simply presence. God with us. (What peace is quotes by Twyla Franz.)

Peace is also like fog. The further out we look, the more lovely the view. Snap a picture up close and you can’t tell the clouds are at your fingertips. But zoom out, while knowing Who’s next to us, and you find beauty laced through the unknown.

Peace isn’t control, but knowing Who holds it all. Every tear-wet prayer. Every delayed dream. Every wearisome disappointment or worry-heavy refrain.

Jesus Is Peace

We SAY Jesus is peace (Ephesians 2:14), but I’m guilty of running ragged on self-effort instead of resting in Him. Do you relate?

I forget that I don’t have to earn or contend for anything. I need constant reminders that it’s neither about or up to me. That the peace I can provide is a sorry substitute for the long-lasting kind we have in Jesus.

You can’t outrun or outwork grading yourself inside your head, the fear of letting others down, or the lie that you don’t matter. You can only release it into the hands of Jesus. When you do, you find peace isn’t a feel-good Band-Aid but a Person.

Wherever your emotions are frayed, or their muchness is numbing or exhausting you, let Jesus hold you. None of it overwhelms or deters Him. He welcomes you with no resentment or reluctance.

Endless Peace

I read recently that the legacy Jesus leaves is peace (John 14:27). The peace-loving, Enneagram 9 in me melts at this promise. It’s not up to us to create, capture, or control peace. It’s a gift for, not from, us.

A legacy is long-lasting. More than that—it’s endless, because Jesus is eternal and the gift is Himself.

Let that soak in for a minute. We have always-access to peace because we always have Jesus. No matter what surrounds or undoes us. What changes and what doesn’t. What’s redeemed before we reach heaven and what isn’t.

What does that mean for you right now?

You’re safe and sheltered.

Seen and treasured.

Strengthened and Spirit-empowered

Now. Tomorrow. Forever.

Praise Your Way to Peace

But how do we go from knowing what’s available to being wrapped in Jesus’s embrace? How do we bridge the disconnect between head knowledge and rest in our souls?

Sometimes you’ve got to praise your way to peace. Offer your allelujah with a cracked voice and your hallelujah with lifted hands. Carve out unhurried space to sink to your knees in reverent surrender.

When peace is elusive, we’ve got to say it out loud until we believe it: God is abundantly able and worthy and present.

Gratitude leads the way, giving us a lens to see Jesus already here. Always capable. Forever worthy.

It’s a pattern I note throughout scripture: praise repostures our heart, tenderizes our souls, and grows our awareness of God’s nearness.

King David pauses the mid-complaint to declare that God is good nevertheless (Psalm 89:52), and it’s the evidence of not just a momentary decision but a lifetime built around worship. Here’s a guy who wakes in the middle of the night with God on his mind, who dances with full abandon, who pens songs to practice on his harp.

For him, praise and worship isn’t an activity or an add-on. It’s what what he lived and breathed and modeled day and night. The link between praising God and finding peace in the middle of challenges was unmistakable.

What if we copied David? What if we stood in the tensions and tumult and raised our hallelujah? Offered our devoted thanks when we awake in the middle of the night? Praised God on paper and outloud, on our knees and in our driveaways? What if we worshiped while we walked–and it unwound us on the inside? Turned our faces towards Jesus? Wrapped us round in forever-lasting peace?

Let’s pray.

Jesus, we long for peace. We long for You. Would You reveal Yourself in our honest, everyday lives? Draw us to You through Your creation. May our thanks and worship touch your heart as it heals ours.

Just a friend over here in your corner,