How to compromise our peace. (Don’t)

We, not circumstances, are what rob our peace.

How do we do that?

We do that when we allow ourselves to get caught up in other people’s drama. However, it’s a fine line to be drawn.

We should always take time to listen to our friends and family and their concerns. It’s what we do after that that make a difference.

Remember this, if you have no responsibility for the situation, you have no obligation to solve it or bear the burden for it. And never take action that someone who is responsible isn’t taking.

I’m a natural born rescuer so I’ve often taken on someone else’s problems to the point that I obsessed over them and worried way too much.

I pray for those seek my advice because it’s a great responsibility. But then throughout the day I often just speak their name out loud knowing that God knows I’m giving them and their situation over to Him.

It has been my experience that getting too involved doesn’t always help and only robs my peace. If my peace is robbed, then I don’t pray effectively. My prayers are hampered as well.

There is a wonderful verse (Psalm 34:14 that states:

 Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. 

We are to seek peace and pursue it. Pursue is a strong word. It means we really go after something. We’re tenacious. We are stubborn. We don’t give up till we get it.

Pursuing peace seems almost paradoxical. They don’t seem to fit together, do they? And yet we are instructed to pursue it.

I think it means that peace is something we have deep within our hearts no matter what else is going on around us. As Philippians 4:7 says, this kind of peace is the peace no one can understand unless they are followers of Christ.

And it’s a peace we can’t give anyone else.

There’s time to help someone and a time not to. Christ did it all the time. He met people where they were, asked them what they wanted, healed them, and then moved on. He didn’t stay and help them work through the inevitable changes in their lives, not because He didn’t care, but because Jesus instinctively knew that people do best when they find their own way.

From my reading of Scripture, I have come to the awareness that God expects us to grow in faith. We are not to remain children. As we grow in Christ, I believe we mature to the point that we don’t have to seek God’s direction for every little thing. Not because God would have a problem with it, but because we know God’s will for most things.

And we have to allow other people to get there as well. If we’re really doing the best for people, we have to allow them to grow on their own while we stand by ready to help when truly needed.

We can pray for them; we can be there for them, but in the final analysis the “work” of growing, maturing and figuring our their lives is clearly up to them.

Most of us have enough to do to figure out our own lives. Cry with your friends. Pray with and for your friends. Be supportive. But let them find their answers through their relationship with the Father.

White knights in shining armour often fall off.

God bless and have a great day.

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