Peace That Comes Only from God

Sometimes God stops us in our tracks…for our own good.

I was recently on my knees in prayer…over a situation I have no control.

A situation that was getting the best of me.

I didn’t know what to pray anymore, and I’d moved to just trying to prepare myself for whatever might happen.

While I talked with God, something changed in how I was praying.

“I know what you’re doing here God, and…”

Immediately, I felt God ask me…

“Do you know what I’m doing?”

My breath caught sharply, and I thought of the book of Job when God gets fed up with Job and challenges him with a lot of questions. (Job 38-40:2)

Can you make lightning appear and cause it to strike as you direct? Who gives intuition to the heart and instinct to the mind? Job 38:35-36

Is it your wisdom that makes the hawk soar and spread its wings toward the south? Is it at your command that the eagle rises to the heights to make its nest? Job 39:26-27

In an instant, with God’s one question to me I realized what I was doing.

I was claiming to know what God was doing!

And God told me to stop it.

In His gentle, but firm way, He said it was enough.

Suddenly, I knew what I needed to pray for. I confessed and asked for His forgiveness.

The situation didn’t change, and I still had no control over it.

But I felt a peace I hadn’t known moments earlier—peace I couldn’t explain, but knew was from Him.

I’d been fighting off the enemy’s obvious attacks in other ways, but this time, he slipped in unnoticed…into my thoughts and attitude as I prayed.

And God stopped it.

In six words, God got my attention and set me straight again.

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life. Psalm 139:23-24

And then He calmed my anxiousness in the way only He can.

Has there been a time in your life when a situation was getting the best of you, and only God could give you peace?