King David noted in this psalm that in the distant past God was there and in the far distant future He will still be there, that in fact God will always be. David reminds us that it is this God\u2014this pre, present, and future existent, eternal One\u2014who gives peace to those who surrender to His rule.<\/p>\n
True lasting peace can only come from God, and it comes when we have peace with<\/em> God because our war with Him has ended. Before we trust in Him, our sin causes us to be in conflict with God Himself, separating us from Him. But when the shed blood of Jesus Christ covers us, our hostilities cease, and we have peace with<\/em> God and also the peace of<\/em> God. Paul said to the Philippians, “and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds through Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:7). So the New Testament teaches us that it is peace from<\/em> God, peace with<\/em> God, and the peace of<\/em> God that we cannot completely comprehend with our human minds.<\/p>\n Catherine Marshall wrote a parable about the true meaning of peace:<\/p>\n There once was a King who offered a prize to the Artist who would paint the best picture of peace. Many Artists tried. The King looked at all the pictures. But there were only two he really liked, and he had to choose between them.<\/p>\n One picture was of a calm lake. The lake was a perfect mirror for peaceful towering mountains all around it. Overhead was a blue sky with fluffy white clouds. All who saw this picture thought that it was a perfect picture of peace.<\/p>\n The other picture had mountains, too. But these were rugged and bare. Above was an angry sky, from which rain fell and in which lightning played. Down the side of the mountain tumbled a foaming waterfall. This did not look peaceful at all. But when the King looked closely, he saw behind the waterfall a tiny bush growing in a crack in the rock. In the bush a mother bird had built her nest. There, in the midst of the rush of angry water, sat the mother bird on her nest\u2014in perfect peace.<\/p>\n Which picture do you think won the prize? The King chose the second picture. Do you know why?<\/p>\n \u201cBecause\u201d, explained the King, \u201cpeace does not always mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble, or hard work. Peace means to be in the midst of all those things, and still be calm in your heart. That is the real meaning of peace.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n “LORD, please give us Your peace again this day.”<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" King David noted in this psalm that in the distant past God was there and in the far distant future He will still be there, that in fact God will always be. David reminds us that it is this God\u2014this pre, present, and future existent, eternal One\u2014who gives peace to those who surrender to His […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7882"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7882"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15772,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7882\/revisions\/15772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}