HAVING A PEACEFUL LIFE HOW TO

Your Christian community may be one or two trusted people or a small group. We each need to belong to a mature Christian community that pushes us to grow, reminds us of God’s truth when we’ve forgotten it, and provides a safe space to admit our burdens. Sometimes we need to be along with God, but we cannot live out the spiritual life healthily on our own. It’s equally true that the Christian life is a team sport, not a solo event. It’s been said many times that the Christian life is a marathon, not a sprint. You may find that painting watercolors helps you feel at peace because it exercises a creative gift that God gives you. You may find walking through your local park helps you feel at peace because it puts you around creation. Look for activities that recenter your mind on healthy things. For example, a playlist of familiar worship songs will help us think about God precisely because we know the words already. They also need a pattern we can follow each time-giving us less time to think about setting them up, more time to use them to recenter our minds. These actions not only have to be regular. One clear application is that every day, we must choose actions that direct our minds toward good things. Recognizing what rituals we do has many applications.

Our ritual actions, the ones we do over and over again (whether choosing to play Christian music in the car radio or buying exorbitant products in the shopping) shape what we value and love. Smith notes in You Are What You Love, we are all shaped by the actions we do each day. While high church liturgy can be used for the wrong reasons, the fact is that we all create a kind of liturgy in our lives. Some Christians worry about liturgy becoming a crutch they rely on-using someone else’s words all the time to talk to God instead of speaking to him directly. Liturgy might sound old-fashioned if you didn’t grow up in a church that used the Book of Common Prayer or similar texts every week. You can supplement your Bible reading with worship music, a set of prayers, or selections from a book of classic Christian writings. Look for advice on morning devotions or quiet time routines. If you’re a new Christian or haven’t delved much into the Bible, there are many resources to help you read the Bible. Whitney Hopler describes how as we read the Bible, God may use particular words or ideas to communicate something we need right now. The Word is also a means for God to speak to us. We are easily distracted and must regularly remind ourselves of God’s teachings, using it to recenter our minds on truth. Not only do we study the Word to understand His teachings better, but we also use it to remind ourselves of His truth. We learn about our heavenly father in several ways, but one of the primary ones is reading His Word. Our peace is not found in ourselves but in our heavenly father.

HAVING A PEACEFUL LIFE HOW TO

As we grow spiritually, we understand more about how the Holy Spirit works and how to reach peace. Randy DeVaul explains how the Holy Spirit provides strength when we are weak and rest when we are weary. We receive the Holy Spirit when we accept Jesus as our savior. The Bible also talks about peace as one of the fruits of the spirit ( Galatians 5:22-23). Instead, Christianity maintains that we have problems, but God supports and walks alongside us as these problems occur.

Nor does Christianity say we need to eliminate problems by reaching some higher mental attitude where we care about nothing and hence have no problems. Unlike some belief systems, Christianity doesn’t maintain that the problem is we need to pretend no problems exist at all. We will have trouble in life-the Bible states that outright ( John 16:33).

Clarence Haynes explains how knowing the gospel gives us peace, the knowledge that we are saved, and therefore have nothing to fear in times of trouble. Paul exhorts believers to have their feet fitted with “the preparation that comes with the gospel of peace” ( Ephesians 6:15). The Bible speaks about peace in various passages. God not only gives us answers in the Bible about finding peace but he gives us the tools we need to receive it.

Most of us know that changing little things-our diet, our exercise routine, our job-will improve little areas of our lives, but they won’t help us achieve lasting peace.įortunately, our questions about finding peace aren’t new ones.

Having a peaceful life