We are living in a time where it isn’t easy to find peace.  In fact, peace can sometimes be impossible to find unless we create it.  We create peace by reading and meditating on the Word of God, communicating with Him through prayer, and guarding our hearts and minds.  Stress is an everyday occurrence in our lives making it challenging to maintain peace.  Stress in our homes, on our jobs, within our families and relationships seems to be ever present. However, that is not God’s plan for us.  

By the mere fact that our lives are so complex, it sometimes becomes difficult to achieve simplicity in any facet of life.  But it can be accomplished if we make it priority.  Priority is what is most important!  If peace is priority, then we have to concentrate on those things that cultivate and maintain peace.  I am a firm believer that preventive measures work best when attempting to outsmart what seems to be inevitable!

I love what the Word of God says in Philippians the 4th chapter verses 6 – 8 and I want to share it with you from the Message translation.

“Don’t fret or worry.  Instead of worrying, pray.  Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns.  Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down.  It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.  Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious – the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly, things to praise, not things to curse.”

Just yesterday my day was going quite well and I’m always happiest when I am getting a lot accomplished.  Well, Satan is never pleased to see us in a happy and content state, so he decided to throw a “monkey wrench” in my day!  I opened my refrigerator and noticed it did not seem cold.  We had noticed the night before that the ice maker wasn’t producing ice.  Well sure enough the refrigerator was malfunctioning!  My husband was not home and was unreachable at the time of my discovery but I knew I needed to make a rather quick decision because the refrigerator and freezer well full of food. 

Long story short, the service technician quickly determined that it needed two major parts that would have to be ordered and will likely take about 5 days to get.  I know Satan wanted me to panic about the cost, the timing, etc. but I refused to.  Instead, I went into gratitude mode!  I began to thank God for discovering the problem before there was any loss of food through spoilage; and then I thanked God for having another perfectly good working refrigerator in the lower level of our home.  

Did this incident interrupt my plans for the day . . . ABSOLUTELY!  But did I in turn interrupt the enemy’s plan to wreck my peaceful, productive day . . . ABSOLUTELY!  With every trip downstairs to the other refrigerator I thanked God for His blessing and provision.  Indeed PEACE prevailed!  I immediately had to go to God with a petition that the replacement parts would not be exorbitantly expensive; but I flooded that petition with praise! And in the praise I found PEACE!

Source: First Lady Denise