21 Ways to Finding Peace and Happiness (13 page)

God said to her, “You’re not dead, are you?”

It’s true that a few things happen in our lives that we don’t like, but what has God kept us from that we never even knew Satan had planned against us? I marvel at the fact that we can drive in traffic and stay alive. We need to thank God for His keeping power. We can relax knowing that He is our Keeper. Daily, God protects us and keeps us from the power of the enemy. We are sealed in the Holy Spirit and preserved for the final day of redemption when Jesus will return.

I don’t know how I’ve done what I’ve done over these past years. I look back at my calendars, and I see how hard I’ve worked. I read some of my prayer journals and remember some of the things I’ve gone through with people, and the hurt I’ve felt. I think,
How did I ever get through that?
But God held me together. He strengthened me. He kept me. And I can see now that I worried about a lot of things I didn’t have to worry about because they worked out okay anyway. God has a plan, and He is working His plan. We can trust that and relax. Psalm 145:14 says, “The Lord upholds all those [of His own] who are falling and raises up all those who are bowed down.”

This continual care of God is uninterrupted in our lives. There’s never a moment when He’s not taking care of us. The Bible says that God never sleeps nor slumbers. When you go to sleep at night, He stays up and watches over you. You can relax.

S
IMPLY
B
ELIEVE

The Bible tells us that we are to live sanctified lives, but then it turns right around and says God will do the work to sanctify us. We are to simply put our trust in Him, hang on to the Vine, and He does the work through us, as these verses promise: “And may the God of peace Himself sanctify you through and through [separate you from profane things, make you pure and wholly consecrated to God]; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved sound and complete [and found] blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah). Faithful is He Who is calling you [to Himself]
and
utterly trustworthy, and He will also do it [fulfill His call by hallowing and keeping you]” (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24).

The disciples asked Jesus, “What must we do to be working the works of God? What must we do to please God?”

Jesus replied, “This is the work (service) that God asks of you: that you believe in the One Whom He has sent [that you cleave to, trust, rely on, and have faith in His Messenger]” (John 6:29).

Joy and peace are found in believing, according to Romans 15:13. Simple, childlike believing enables us to live with an ease that releases joy and peace. Hebrews 4 teaches us that those who have believed enter the rest of God.

As believers, we are supposed to
believe.
Otherwise we’d be called
achievers.
But we’re
believers,
and to be believers we must first learn how to
be
instead of
do.

Relax; all the good things that God has planned for you will come to you through Him, not through your works. Romans 11:36 confirms, “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. [For all things originate with Him and come from Him; all things live through Him, and all things center in and tend to consummate and to end in Him.] To Him be glory forever! Amen (so be it).”

To be at peace with God, we have to learn how to
maintain
peace. Maintaining requires watchfulness and daily attention. As we will continue studying in the next chapter, we must avoid strife with others in order to stay supernaturally relaxed.

Peacekeeper #7
AVOID STRIFE TO MAINTAIN PEACE WITH GOD

I
’ve discovered over the years that peace is one of the greatest gifts God has given to us. But Satan works incessantly to steal our peace, so we must be aware of his tactics and be determined to live peaceful lives so we can live powerful lives. Once we have peace with God, we must learn to maintain it in order to enjoy it every day of our lives. Maintaining peace means that we must pursue peace, crave it, and go after it with all of our might.

Peace and power work together. Peace allows the anointing of God’s presence to flow through our lives. That grace gives us the power to live the way God wants us to live, and to enjoy what God has provided for us.

I believe that the level of peace we walk in and the level of prosperity we have are directly connected. We can prosper from God’s blessings, but if we lose our peace in the process, we may also lose our prosperity too.

The loss of peace opens a door for the devil to rob us. Ephesians 4:26–27 verifies this when it says if we become angry, we should not let the sun go down on our anger. It says we should not give the devil any such foothold in our lives.

There was a time when our ministry was growing so fast that it was actually creating problems. We couldn’t hire enough people. We didn’t have enough space, and we had difficulty keeping up with the growth. It was important to keep our peace, but I felt that we were running to keep up with God all the time. He was blessing us, but we had to learn how to handle the blessings and stay peaceful.

The loss of peace can come from anything that causes us to feel we are on overload. Problems may make us feel that way, and even success and growth can make us feel overwhelmed sometimes. At that time in our ministry, we suddenly found ourselves needing to deal with things we had never dealt with before, and we had to learn to trust God in an entirely new way.

We wanted to grow and prosper, but we strongly felt that God had instructed us to maintain our peace in order to do so. God works in an atmosphere of peace, not in turmoil and strife. I believe that God opens the door for many people to be blessed, but they quickly lose the blessing because they allow their emotions to rule when they should be diligent to walk in peace.

One of the ways we maintain peace with God is by maintaining peace with the people in our lives. Our new growth meant we had to make a lot of new decisions, and Dave and I had to work at staying out of strife because we did not always agree.

Avoiding strife with people is such an important aspect of peace that I have devoted an entire section of this book, which you will read later, to teach the various ways God has taught me to maintain peace with others as unto the Lord. But because the way we treat other people is important to God, I also want to make clear how maintaining peace in our relationships with others helps us to be at peace with God.

God does not like it if I mistreat someone. It grieves His Holy Spirit, and I feel a sudden loss of peace. I remember one night when I could not sleep. I tossed and turned until five o’clock, at which time I finally asked, “Lord, what is wrong with me? Why can’t I sleep?”

He instantly showed me a situation from the previous day when

I was quite impatient and rude to someone. I never apologized; I justified my actions and went on my way. I had grieved the Holy Spirit, and the loss of peace was keeping me awake. As soon as I repented of my sin, my peace returned and I went to sleep. And the next day, I also apologized to the person as soon as I could.

As servants of the Lord, we must not have strife, because where there is strife, there is neither power to enjoy life nor prosperity in any area, including our relationships. Peace and prosperity are two components of the abundant life that God wants us to have. We cannot represent Him properly if we are in strife.

The relationship between Abram (later Abraham) and Lot illustrates the importance of maintaining peace in our relationships with others. Genesis 12 records the covenant of peace that God made with Abraham and his heirs. Abraham became extremely rich and powerful because God blessed him. God chose him to be the man through whom He would bless all the nations on the face of the earth.

I find it interesting that in the very next chapter, Genesis 13, strife came between the herdsmen of Lot and Abraham’s cattle (see v. 7). Strife is the exact opposite of peace. God gave Abraham peace, and Satan went immediately to stir up strife. God wanted to bless Abraham, and Satan wanted to steal his blessing.

Sometimes God’s abundance can cause problems that lead to strife. He had blessed Abraham and Lot with so many possessions and cattle that the land could not nourish and support them. They had to regroup.

The Bible says that Abraham went to Lot and said, “Let there be no strife, I beg of you, between you and me, or between your herdsmen and my herdsmen” (Genesis 13:8). He told Lot that they were going to have to separate, so Lot should choose the land he wanted, and Abraham would take what was left.

Abraham took a humble position to avoid strife, knowing that if he did what was right, God would always bless him. But Lot, who would have had nothing if Abraham hadn’t given it to him, chose the best part: the Jordan Valley. Abraham didn’t say a thing; he just took the leftovers. He knew God would bless him if he stayed in peace. People who walk in peace in order to honor God cannot lose in life.

But then God took Abraham up on a hill and said, “Now, you look to the north, to the south, to the east, and the west—and everything you see, I’ll give to you” (see vv. 14–15). What a great deal! Abraham gave up one valley, and God gave him everything he could see.

H
UMILITY
B
RINGS
P
EACE

God honored Abraham’s humility and blessed him abundantly with fruitful land. I believe that God’s got a good plan for all of us, but prideful attitudes can prevent us from having all that God wants us to have. A bad attitude is one of the most important things on which we can work with God to overcome.

The Bible says that strife and contention come only by pride. You cannot have strife if you don’t have pride. Pride was Lucifer’s sin, and it is so deceptive that proud people don’t know that they are proud. When people are deceived by pride, they blame others for everything that goes wrong and fail to see their own faults.

Romans 12:16–17 says,

Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty (snobbish, high-minded, exclusive), but readily adjust yourself to [people, things] and give yourselves to humble tasks. Never overestimate yourself or be wise in your own conceits. Repay no one evil for evil, but take thought for what is honest and proper and noble [aiming to be above reproach] in the sight of everyone.

Some people are basically impossible to get along with, but I love Romans 12:18, which says, “
If possible, as far as it depends on you,
live at peace with everyone” (italics mine). We can’t do their part, but we
must
do our part of maintaining peace with others.

I challenge you to be a maker and a maintainer of peace today and every day of your life. Go the extra mile to keep peace—even if it means apologizing to somebody when you really don’t think you’re wrong. I’m not suggesting that you let everybody take advantage of you. But I am suggesting that you live life with humility so you can enjoy peace and the blessings that result from it.

The Bible says there are times that we will look like sheep being led to the slaughter. But right in the midst of all these things, we are more than conquerors. If two people are arguing, the one who is proud, stubborn, and refuses to apologize is the loser, not the winner. The one who looks like a sheep on his way to disaster but humbles himself and says, “Look, I don’t want any trouble. If I was wrong, I’m sorry. Please forgive me” is the winner. He took the position that Jesus would have taken if He were there, dealing with that same situation.

Humility is
hard
on our flesh. But the Bible tells us to walk in the Spirit, not in the flesh. We need to learn how to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. We also need to recognize when we are not following the ways of the Lord.

People use the phrase, “Well, I got in the flesh,” but we need to learn how to get out of it just as quickly as we got in. We mustn’t get selfish and stay that way for long periods of time. The Bible says not to let the sun go down on our anger (see Ephesians 4:26). God knew there would be times when we would get angry, but as soon as we know we’re angry, we can keep that emotion from controlling us. We can come back to a place of peace before the day is over. It requires some humility and a decision.

We can be Peacemakers and Peace Maintainers. To do so, we will have to treat people nicely who haven’t been so nice to us. We can have abundant lives, but we will have to do what the Bible says in order to have it. God’s promises of a good life are for “whosoever will”; not just whosoever will receive the promises, but whosoever will
obey
what He tells them to do. Then the promises will be enacted in their lives.

That’s why it is so important to know what the Word of God says, and let God work it out in our lives through our obedience to Him. It is hard to say we are sorry, but we can do all things through Christ. He will give us the grace to be Peacemakers.

One morning, Dave corrected me about something when I wasn’t feeling good. My first thought was,
Oh my, not this morning!
I was in Africa, preaching. I was already fighting jet lag, my back was hurting, my eyes were extremely dry, I was tired, and in general I did not feel good when my husband decided to correct me.

Why is it that when somebody corrects us, the first thing we do is get mad? That’s what I did. Now, I had gained a little bit of control over my emotions, so I didn’t
show
my anger. But inside, I was not happy.

Naturally, the first thing we want to do when people correct us is start telling them everything that’s wrong with them. Dave was describing a certain situation where he felt I hadn’t shown him respect. My response was, “Well, there are many times when you don’t show
me
respect.”

He said, “We aren’t talking about me. We’re talking about you.” Talk about a flesh burner! Whoa! Lord, have mercy!