peace within yourself, peace with others

*As you can see, my FANCY little website is having a technical temper tantrum. It should be up and running and looking back to normal again in no time! 🙂

**When I first decided to do this 31 series about Finding Peace, my other biggest cheerleader was the wonderful, Mr. Fancy. He was SO excited for me to embark on a journey, especially writing about a topic that I struggle with so much. I knew that he just had to do a guest post and after a little prodding, he agreed 🙂 and I am so excited to share this post with you. He is the most amazing husband and father and person and I’m so proud of him daily. I love him and this post so much. 

Without further ado, here is Mr. Fancy

When Ash came home from The Influence Conference a month ago and shared with me that she had made this bold decision to do this 31 day series on finding peace my first response (to myself of course) was what emotional 31 day road trip am I in for but also, how do I contact this Erin person who helped encourage her to do it and thank her…I quickly realized this is a perfect topic for her to take a journey on and that God might finally be responding to one of my many prayers for my wife.  That is that her faith will grow stronger and help her overcome her fears, worries and anxieties and find peace.

Ash, as most of you know, is a very dynamic person and more importantly she has been blessed with this amazing ability to find a way to relate to almost anyone, regardless of their background.  However, as anyone who has read her blog for more than a day also knows that she struggles with her worries and fears and the anxieties that result from them.  Peace on a regular basis is not easy for her.  I, on the other hand, worry about little which makes for some interesting discussions in our home.  Luckily, I was also blessed with patience 🙂 … But believe me there are more strengths of hers that complement my struggles than the other way around.

When you talk about what is Peace and how to find it, I believe there are two parts to it.  Finding Peace within yourself and finding Peace with others.

Peace within yourself

I am blessed with a very strong faith in God and I am a strong believer in his gift of grace.  Believe me I need his grace as I fall way short of his expectations on a daily basis.  I believe faith in God provides the cornerstone of finding Peace within yourself and the ability to deal with any situation.  Just the mere idea that the Creator of all things being there whenever you need him should provide the sense of relief and hope that in the end everything will turn out fine and give you peace.  God does not promise you an easy path, but he does promise he will take you through that path.

I am a big believer in “Giving it to God”.  Ironically it’s actually a big motto of both mine and Ash’s mother and we both are guilty of handing out unsolicited advice. There is something miraculous about being able to truly hand something over to God.  Have you ever had the situation where you just can’t do it anymore and you need God to take over?  How about that relationship with a friend or family member where you have done all you know to do, but it’s not working and the next step could be ending it.  Or what about when your financial situation is so dire and if it does not turn around soon you could lose everything?

When I read Erin’s guest post last week and she quoted Philippians 4: 6-7, it states”… Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. If you do this, you will experience God’s peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand…”  When you give it to God this is what you will experience.  I have had to do this several times in my life and it is the most overwhelming sense of Peace that you can imagine. You go from one extreme of hopelessness to such a heavy burden being lifted from you… It’s truly amazing!  Unfortunately, we tend to do this only in the direst of situations.  Honestly, He wants you to do it in all situations.

 I believe finding peace within you is really as easy as having a strong faith in God and giving it all to him.

 Peace with others

While it’s not a necessity, I believe finding peace with yourself serves as a foundation to having or bringing more peace to others.  There are a few forms of peace with others that come to mind.

 The most common area that we affect peace with others is conflict.  Ash’s post two days ago was from an unknown author who said “Peace.  It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still in your heart.”  This quote reminded me of something I heard on my former minister’s podcast a few weeks back.  He said “Peace is not the absence of conflict.  Peace is where conflict is handled effectively and respectfully to the preserving of relationships”.  I take two things away from this statement.  First, by avoiding or trying to ignore conflict does not bring you or the other party peace.  The situation is still lingering and all you have done is postponed dealing with it sometime down the line.  Secondly, we should focus on preserving the relationship.  We typically are so focused on being right or getting our way that we fail to have any concern for the damage we may be causing to our relationship.

Not coming to peace with yourself or a situation can create a ripple effect to those around you.  I think we can all relate to the stressful day at work or with the kids that puts us in a bad mood that ends up putting a damper on the overall evening with our family and can even lead to taking it out on our spouse… Or how about when something is bothering you to the point that you just can’t drop it and you end up being the Debbie Downer of a party or occasion.  Our failure to come to peace with our own situations can affect the peace of those around us.

Everyone wants to find peace in their lives and quite honestly I believe it’s a choice we can all make for ourselves.  Can someone find peace on their own?  Absolutely… However, I believe walking with God daily and giving your troubles and control over to him will make finding peace much easier.  It will bring joy not only to your life, but also to those around you.

This is the 22nd post in a 31 day series about Finding Peace. You can find the rest of the posts in this series, here.