30 Days on Finding Peace – Day 1 – Pray for Peace

Pray for Peace

Today is Day 1 in the series on Finding Peace and we are discussing how we should pray for peace. It makes sense that we don’t get what we don’t ask for..so praying for peace should be something that we earnestly ask for when we are placing our petitions before the Lord.

First let’s define what the topic means. According to several reference books and for this application Peace means the freedom of your mind from annoyances, distractions, an anxieties.

I never found the rest of the phrase we all think of when we talk about finding peace… and quiet! Nope, it wasn’t in any of the sources that I reached out to while studying the topic.

So how do we find peace? How do we free our mind from annoyances, distractions, an anxieties? It starts with us asking the Lord to give it to us. Now, it doesn’t mean that we can go about our own way and then when we get upset, we run to Him to fix it.

This type of peace is inner peace. It comes from knowing, without a doubt that you are a child of God and no matter what happens…He is in control.

That is the type of peace that will get you through the storms of life. Because it isn’t if the storms will come, it is when they come. I read somewhere that there are three stations in the storms of life. We are either entering into a storm, deep in the middle of one, or just coming out of one. I personally agree with that statement and have found it to be true in our crazy family.

I think the Apostle Peter is one of the best examples of someone finding peace. Think about his situation. More often than not, he was being imprisoned for teaching about Christ and yet he still was faithful.

Acts 12:6 says:

“The night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries stood guard at the entrance.”

Earlier, Peter had been celebrating at a Jewish festival when King Herod had him arrested and imprisoned. He had every reason to be fearful for his life. Just a few days earlier, Herod had ordered the execution of James, another disciple.

Yet the night before Peter was to meet with Herod, he was sleeping soundly! So soundly that the scriptures say in Acts 12:7 that “an angel of the Lord stood by him, and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side, and woke him up“.. Woke him up?  Most people would be up, pacing the floor and trying to come up with the right words to convince an evil man to spare their life.

But not Peter. He was sleeping so soundly that he didn’t hear or see the angel of the Lord until they struck him to wake him up! How was it he was able to sleep so soundly that evening? I believe the real answer can be found in Acts 12:5.

“So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.”

Peter had the support and prayers of other Christians. They were praying earnestly for him and his safety. It was their prayers and his trust in the Lord that allowed him to sleep.

But what us? Do we earnestly pray for peace and protection? Do we pray for a friend or sister in Christ to have peace before a surgery, a job interview, or while they walk through a storm? Or do we think prayers like this really don’t matter?

But they do! Your prayers not only have power; they can bring peace to the heart of someone who is facing a struggle or living in the middle of the unknown. Just the comfort of knowing that someone else is praying for them is powerful.

Think of someone that you care about that is facing a storm. Pray for them and ask for peace as they face the situation. Ask God to give them wisdom and discernment as they need it. Pray that they will have the peace to face this storm.

The same goes for ourselves. When we face the unknowns of life, we need to go to our Heavenly Father and ask for direction, wisdom, and discernment so that we can let go of the annoyances, distractions, an anxieties of this storm and have peace in our heart.

My prayer while we work through the series this month is that you will spend time in the Word and in prayer asking for the help of the comforter. We could do into so many other topics about how we should do things to make our lives less stressful but the bottom line is that we will always have storms in life; and we need to learn to go to the Lord first and let Him give us the comfort in knowing that He is in control. We need to rest in His arms and find peace.

 

Sherryl