Peace and Quiet aren't the same

February 27 - March 3, 2023 | Always Peachy Devotionals | Living with Peace Week 4

Would you enjoy some peace and quiet?

We all would, probably. When we go on vacation, that’s what we’re seeking. When we’re enforcing our boundaries, that’s what we want. Peace and quiet is the aim of the essentialists, the ones who want simple lives without clutter or complication.

But the tricky think about peace is that it’s rarely quiet. These days, it’s usually the other way around. It’s much easier to find quiet in life than it is to find peace.

Finding quiet in your life is more about doing whatever is necessary to get people to stop bothering you. Sometimes it’s compromising. Sometimes it’s cutting corners. The search for quiet is an external goal, and while it’s nice to find, it doesn’t last long. Quiet is temporary.

But peace? Peace is different. Peace is internal. It’s the soul-deep assurance that no matter how rocky life gets, God is still in control. He still has a plan, and He’s working it out for our good. But the difficulty with peace is that you can’t find it. To be honest, you can’t even make peace. Peace is a gift that only God can give you. Only then, once you have accepted that gift from Him, can you share it with others.

If you’re trusting your own abilities or performance to provide you with peace, you’ll never get there. Sure, you may have some quiet times. But you won’t have real peace.

It’s certainly possible to achieve peace and quiet at the same time. Just don’t confuse them, and never trade the lasting for the temporary.

This week, we’re going to focus on real, true peace. Not just quiet. We’re going to read about what it means to be filled with God’s peace in a world that is growing less and less peaceful by the hour.

• February 27 - Peace can be false

• February 28 - Jesus promised us trouble

• March 1 - Perfect peace is possible

• March 2 - God’s love endures forever

• March 3 - God can protect us from trouble

For a memory verse this week, we’re going back to Psalms, because whenever I need peace, that’s where I go. The passage we’ll be memorizing together this week is, Psalm 9:9-10.

The Lord is a shelter. The Lord is a refuge. The Lord does not abandon His people. Believe that. Embrace that. And it won’t matter what the world or the enemy throws at you, nothing will shake you.

Praying for each of you this week that God’s peace will fill your lives in every way and that you’ll experience His peace in a way that can only be explained through knowing Him.

I’m going to leave you with a song that resonated in my soul recently. I needed these words, so I figured someone else out there would need them too.

Blessings, my friends.

Amy

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