Stop Allowing Yourself to be Upset
Adapted from Mornings with God
Peace I leave with you; My [own] peace I now give and bequeath to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. [Stop allowing yourselves to be agitated and disturbed; and do not permit yourselves to be fearful and intimidated and cowardly and unsettled.]
We don’t need to ask God to give us peace because He has already given it to us. Jesus left us His special peace, but we must learn how to stop letting ourselves get upset and fearful. I have learned that the devil “sets us up to get upset.” He knows what rattles us and can easily arrange for those things to happen. We are wiser than he is, but we need to use the wisdom God has given us and not keep going around and around the same mountain, making the same mistakes repeatedly.
Peace is wonderful. I hate strife, anger, arguing, and harsh disagreements—and I think until we do hate them, we won’t avoid them. Proverbs 6:16 says there are “six things the Lord hates,” and “seven are an abomination to Him.” The seventh is “he who sows discord among his brethren” (Proverbs 6:19). Ephesians 6:15 mentions shoes of peace (NLT), and we are to put them on. This means to walk in peace all the time, and it doesn’t happen automatically. We have to learn to sense when we are starting to get upset and stop it before it reaches a full roar.
God has given us self-control, and it will help us stay in peace if we learn how to recognize the symptoms of getting upset.
Prayer of the Day: Lord, help me recognize when I’m starting to lose my peace. Give me wisdom and self-control to stop anger and strife before they take over, amen.
