What is God’s peace and how can we experience it?
Who wouldn’t want peace? We live in a time when anxiety, stress and fear are high (as, perhaps, are the reasons for feeling those things!) and the ability to feel peace is something many people would love to have. And Paul writes that the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:7
What is the peace of God?
Peace is one of the many wonderful gifts God offers us. And it can show up in a number of ways.
There are three relationships that can be transformed by peace, and they all look quite different.
- Peace with God. Through Jesus, we can be reconciled to God and enjoy being a loved part of his family. We can worship, pray and grow in our relationship with our Father.
- Peace with others. God is great at repairing broken relationships and helping us to live in peace with one another.
- Peace with ourselves. Finally, we have the kind of inner peace that so many of us are seeking. A mind and spirit not overcome by worry, but steady and secure thanks to God’s work within us.
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Get your journalGod’s peace ‘transcends understanding’
The peace of God, we’re told in Philippians, is beyond all understanding. It doesn’t have to make sense. It doesn’t sit you down and list off all the reasons why you don’t need to worry anymore, or explain God’s plan to protect you from the things you fear.
Maybe you’ve experienced this yourself: crying out to God for help in what felt like an impossible situation, and in response being flooded with a feeling that you can only describe as peace. Your problems haven’t instantly vanished. And yet, somehow you feel different. You just know it’s going to be OK.
For those of us who love to understand everything and analyse everything fully to make sense of it, this is a challenge to let go and to trust God. Thankfully, the gift of God’s peace makes that trust much easier.
Guard your hearts and minds
Paul writes that peace will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Paul is particularly interested in our mindset in this verse and those immediately before it in Philippians 4. Those previous verses offer us some more tools to help us keep from being totally overwhelmed.
- Make a deliberate choice to look for things to be joyful about: ‘Rejoice in the Lord always.’ (Philippians 4:4)
- Pray about the things you need: ‘…present your requests to the Lord’ (Philippians 4:6)
- Don’t forget to be thankful for the things that are going right! ‘By prayer and petition, with thanksgiving…’ (Philippians 4:6)
A prayer for when you feel less-than-peaceful
Father God, my situation feels overwhelming right now. But I know you are with me in it. Will you give me your peace, where I don’t feel peaceful, and quiet the noise in my heart and mind today? Amen.
And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
