Well, hello again, and welcome to the Trim the Wick podcast. This week we are bringing you a special edition. We are actually going to be sharing with you a podcast that we did over a year ago on our previous podcast called seeing God in the everyday. And it's how to have real peace. And we both believe that in this time, where it's just kind of crazy right now, if you even walk out the door with just everything that's happening, it's kind of a crazy time, and it can really
steal your peace if you let it. So, in this podcast, we talked talk about ways that you can keep your peace. We talk about what real peace is and how to rejoice in God through all circumstances. And we hope you enjoy real peace. Trying to find peace and what it is to find peace. And, you know, it's easy. Again, like we were saying, when you're in church. Cause you got the music, you got the preaching, you got people that, you.
Know, the environment's conducive.
Yeah, it makes it easy. But, you know, the hard thing is, is, you know, the next morning when you're getting up to go to school or you're getting up to get the kids ready to go to school or you're trying to go to work and everything's against you, and there's, like, there's nothing that's helping you, let's put it this way, to give you peace. There's nothing that helps you see peace or anything.
You see what's right in front of you and the problems that need to be addressed, but not the bigger picture.
Get mad, angry, drive a thousand miles to work, start m. I hate my job because I have to drive here, or I hate, the car, school line, or whatever it is that you do, you end up focusing on that instead of focusing on things that would actually give you peace. So can we talk about that? Let's talk about what is like real peace. And absolutely what does that mean, to have peace even though the world around you is going crazy?
Well, I think what you're talking about is something that my mom and I used to have conversations about. We tend to talk about turns of phrase and words that we use. And in those circumstances, a lot of times, you hear people talk about, well, under the current circumstances, I'm da da da da, or under the current
circumstances, I'm this. I think that we live under our circumstances a lot of times and don't recognize that the peace of God that he describes, the peace that's available in Christ Jesus, is a peace that puts us above our circumstances. It's a peace that passes all understanding. And as believers in Christ, we don't have to live under the circumstances. It doesn't mean that
the circumstances aren't there. It doesn't negate the realities of life, that there is sickness and there is frustration and there are things that happen.
Sleeping, you miss your love. There's still stress. Stuff happens in everyday life, right? Just because you're, a believer in Jesus and you want have peace in your life does not mean that all of a sudden you wake up every day on time. You m never get sick, you're going to be able to pay all your bills.
And it also doesn't mean that your initial visceral response to those things is not frustration or anger or trying to figure out what to do or stress or. We hear a lot these days about anxiety and depression and sadness. Having peace that takes us out and on top of our circumstances doesn't mean that we don't have an emotional life. We do feel emotions, and I think we see that in scripture, that Jesus felt emotions, but he was not
ruled by them. His life wasn't overtaken by his emotional response to things.
Right? And I think that there's a misconception out there of what peace is. That peace is this quiet, serene, you know, I'm sitting, you know, by the babbling brook and my thoughts and in nature, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But that's not what peace is.
No, because that's dependent on your circumstances, too. Correct? You're saying that I'm not at peace until all the circumstances line up to what my definition of the perfect space would be. For some people, it's quiet room windows covered and cool air blowing and wrapped up in a snuggly blanket by a fireplace. And some people, it's the babbling brooks. But what you're looking for is a change in your circumstances, a change in your environment. And that's not real peace, right?
You're, again, you're just substituting one with the other. You're taking out the high stressor thing for a low stressor thing. And then what happens is you start desiring the low stressor things instead of desiring actual peace, which leads to more.
Anxiety, because life happens. And on your way to that low stress thing, my goodness, I mean, just, just this weekend, we had an example of that. You took me out for my birthday, and we were going to this wonderful, what I would describe as my kind of perfect, peaceful environment out on the water, on a boat away from everything, beautiful sunset, wind blowing in our face.
But there are some circumstances still going on in our life, because as that was happening, we were watching a hurricane approach our stage, and we didn't know which way the winds were going to blow on that. Sometimes, even though it looks like you're attaining your ideal environment, there's still things around your life that can happen.
And I think, again, it goes back to where I think there's misconceptions with, people believe, with Christianity, is that if you accept Jesus, it makes everything right. It makes everything good. It changes all the things. And it doesn't change all the things. All the things are still there. It changes you.
Yes.
And that's the thing of what peace really is. It's something that changes you. It's something that between you and the father, not between you and your circumstances. And, it goes back to one of the things we're going to look at is we want to look at Philippians four. And there's a great passage here in Philippians four where, Paul's writing to the church in Philippi, and he is basically explaining to them what true peace is. And it's not
through your circumstances. It's through oneness with Christ.
You want me to read those?
Yeah, read a little bit of that, if you would.
These are actually some of my absolute favorite verses in the scripture, starting in verse four. See, it says, rejoice in the Lord always. So there's a prescription. Okay. That's. That's one of the things that we can do that leads to peace. We can rejoice in the Lord. I will say it again. Rejoice. Let your graciousness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Yeah, don't worry about anything, but in
everything. Through prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any moral excellence, and if there is anything praiseworthy, dwell on these things.
Do what you have learned and received and heard from me am seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.
Wow. A couple things I wanted to see in that, or I wanted to kind of bring out with, number one, the rejoicing and that we're supposed to be rejoicing always. It's not a thing of, oh, my gosh, I found my lost key, or I found m my lost locket. I found this, and now I'm gonna be rejoicing. or my team won, or the kids are finally down. No, it's to rejoice always. And, you know, and that's hard. That is a mindset that is a. Between you and God, but it's also an acknowledging of who God is.
Well, and I think it's key to understand, too, that it says, rejoice in the Lord, not rejoice in your circumstances. This is not a command to say, oh, thank you, God, that my tire is flat in the middle of the highway and I'm late to work.
Right.
He's not asking you to rejoice for the garbage that happens in your life.
Right?
I. He's calling you to rejoice in who the Lord is, no matter what garbage is going on.
Right. And it's an acknowledgement, again, it's between you and God. It's a focusing on what God is in your life, not your circumstances, and not what's going on around you. The other thing is prayer and thanksgiving, and a lot of times, our prayers, and I love how our pastor says it, sometimes we complain more in our prayers, but our prayers are not complaints to God.
Right? Shouldn't be.
No, they shouldn't be. A lot of times, that's what they turn into. They turn into, gosh, I'm upset about this, so I'm going to complain to you, God, about it. And God's like, do you not understand the whole thing of the universe? And you're like, no, I don't. but we should pray to him with thanksgiving, that we do bring him petitions, but we need to understand that we're bringing this in not a complaining way, but thanking God that he's number one there to hear us.
Right.
That he is there to do something about it, and that he is going to carry us through it no matter what it is. And that alone, right there, will change so much in your life if you struggle a lot with anxiety, and things like this, praying and not complaining in your prayers, but being grateful for what you have, being grateful for what God's doing, being grateful for who God is in your life starts changing how you pray and how you speak to him.
Right.
And it will also open your eyes, the things that he sees that we don't. Right.
and I think he puts it together beautifully in that verse, because it's almost like he's presenting a scale. You know, on this side of the scale is worry and anxiety, and on this side of is prayer and petition. With Thanksgiving, presenting our requests to the Lord. And he's saying, don't do this. Don't weigh down this side. Heavy. Don't get all anxious. And the way you do that, the way you bring that balance back into play is by loading up the prayer and petition with Thanksgiving
to the Lord. You know, don't feed this side of the scale.
Yeah, well. And then it continues. Rake keeps telling us the things we should focus on, right? And I will admit, it is so hard not to focus on the things. The world. It is so difficult. I mean, your phone is constantly yelling at you, your kids, your job, just the everyday things of life, your house and your car. I mean, there's so many things that can come
and just start pulling you. It's amazing when you stop, when you sit down and you start thinking about what's actually pulling on your attention and what's pulling on basically what needs you. It's an incredible thing. And so he's saying, listen, we need to focus on these things. The things that are lovely, things that are pure. Those are things that we focus on. If we're focusing on those things, they change
the world around us. Because now we start seeing beauty in things where we were seeing ashes. Not too long ago, we were on a trip and we got delayed and we were driving. And then the next thing you know, we were able to exit before the. Right before the traffic got too bad, because we were literally two cars before.
We would have been stuck. We were able to exit.
But if we were a minute earlier, two minute earlier, we would have been stuck for hours. And this, they shut down the highway and stuff for hours. And we were able to exit just because we were two minutes later. And we were. We were frustrated because we were running behind and we were like, you know, and then it's like, okay, God, I understand.
You literally helped us. You literally put things in our path and in our way so that we were a little bit slower, so that we could be blessed to be able to get off the highway, get there at all. And it's little things like that where we go, thank you, God, for that. And it's little things like that wherever. If you start focusing on those things. Those are the things that start giving you peace in the long run.
And that begins by focusing on who the Lord is. If you start with that rejoice in the Lord piece, you're filtering everything we talk a lot about. Well, so and so has no filters or what are you filtering things through? Or especially, I know we're three years out. But coming out of the COVID shutdowns and all the trauma that you're hearing a lot. I mean, I don't know how many ads are on YouTube for betterhelp.com, my goodness.
Because people are talking about filtering their life through their trauma and filtering their life through the bad things that have happened, working through those things. So the filters that are in your mind matter. And if you begin filtering through who the Lord is, then it becomes easier if you remember that the Lord is trustworthy, that he is with you always, that he is faithful, that he is a protector and a provider, that
he is a comforter. If you fill your mind with those things, then when that stuff happens that you're frustrated with, or you don't want to happen, the filter is already in place of who the Lord is. And so your eyes are more readily turned to where he is in the situation, because in Romans, he tells us so. He's put himself in every line of creation, which includes all of the circumstances that happened in our lives, right? He created time, all the
circumstances that are in play. But sometimes we walk around blind to the whatsoever is pure and lovely and commendable. We think that there's nothing praiseworthy in any of it because we're looking at the stuff instead of filtering it through the rejoicing in the Lord. And if we'll begin with rejoicing in the Lord, then we're more able to turn and look at, okay, well, this circumstance stinks right now, but I see this lovely thing that
is coming out of it. Or even if you're in a place where you don't see anything lovely that's coming out of it, you can see the loveliness of God where you are holding you, right?
And I think that's where a lot of the people, when they do get away and they can close off the noise, go by the babbling brook, like we said earlier, and go and get to a place where it is quieter. It is easier, like when you are in church and the music and the preaching and you're with family, it is easier to do. But this is not just something for those moments. This is something for every minute of your day, every minute of your life, where God wants to give you peace in everything.
It's not just a thing that you have once in a while. Peace is not an emotion. It's not a feeling. And it is something that will help carry you through. So you're in these situations of full stress when people go up to you and are like, well, how are you so calm? How are you so straightforward? How can you think clearly in all of this? And it's like, because I have peace. I have peace in what God's doing in my life and I have peace in what God's doing
here. Even though I don't understand everything. I can focus on the things that are good, that are righteous, the things that are pure. I can rejoice in him and who he is even in the midst of this and be able to do what I need to be doing. You know, the last thing I wanted to kind of talk about with, on this peace thing is that it's so important that we carry this and that we bring peace with us where we
go. And I think going back to a, situation where you were in a job situation a couple years ago, and it was a very dysfunctional workplace, let's put it.
Indeed it was.
And the owners, both the owners were, if they weren't fighting each other, they were fighting everyone else. I remember them making a comment that it's so different when you're there, because when you walk in the door, there was something different. You know, that was a rough time for you when you were going through that. And that was one of the things that.
Hanging on to these verses, hanging on to rejoicing in the Lord, even in a horrible situation, you were able to bring peace into an area that had no peace.
But the reason that that was feasible is because I wasn't in it alone. And that's where this peace comes from. I can almost hear people on the other side of the camera going, okay, that's well and good and okay, rejoice in the Lord and okay, when things are falling down around me, you know, find the silver lining, right? That's not what we're talking about.
We're not talking about finding the silver lining.
We're not talking about finding the silver lining. We're talking about understanding and walking in the reality that Jesus wasn't kidding when he said that he would be with you always. That, and he wasn't kidding when he said that everything that he had access to the fullness of the father, the fullness of the spirit that he had access to that held him through accusations and slander and beatings and, you know, all of that crucifixion, death, hell, the grave,
pretty, rotten circumstances. Yeah, but what held him through all of that is accessible to us every single day because we are relationship with him. And that's where this, that's where this all hinges is that I didn't go into that rotten workplace alone.
Right.
Ever.
Right.
I went in with him and he's the one that was bringing peace to me. And you know, when Jesus is in the room, he brings peace to pretty much everybody. So the practical side of this is that, yeah, this is a discipline that you build up and it is a thing of having to over and over and over again, take your mind and your emotions and submit them to who he is and go, you know what?
If it was just me, I would really love to tell that person off and I would really love to go in and fix this or doing things like that a lot. Recognizing that you don't have to fix it.
Right.
You do have to walk through it and you do have to make decisions and you do have to feel the emotions. I mean, we tell our kids all the time, go ahead and feel the feels, but then do what's right.
You still do what's right.
You still do what's right. And you're capable of that because you're not alone, right? Because your ability to see what's true and see what's right rests on the reality that Christ is who he is and he is with you.
We're literally scratching the surface on this. there is so much more to peace and having peace in your life. And I like the thing that you said is that there is, a workingness out. There is a. And I think that's why he starts in saying, hey, rejoice. And it's an action. You need to make sure you're focusing on the right things and you need to build that strength in your piece. And, I know it's
almost muscle that you work. Yeah, it almost sounds weird to say, but I mean, it is something that you're going to have to strengthen. You're going to have to think of the things, you're going to have to rejoice in those times. And you know what? Like Becky said at the beginning, it's like sometimes when you're in the middle of it, it's hard. It's hard. And it's hard that your first response might not be
the right one. But if you take the time and you work it out like anything else and you focus on what Christ has for you, you focus on what God has for you, it's going to start, the peace will start coming. It starts giving you a peace that people can't understand. People around you will just be surprised and go, how in the world are you doing this? How can you make it through this, or how do you speak like that? And you're like, because
I understand. I understand my peace. I understand what God has and what's happening in my life.
So I would encourage you, as you read over the passage, ask the Lord for creativity. What are the ways that I can best rejoice in you? What are the things you want to show me about who you are that I really need to hear right now? Because God is multifaceted and he is beautiful eternally. So there are things about his character that will speak to exactly where you are. And so as you begin that rejoicing in the Lord, ask him, what is it you want to show me of yourself? For me?
What's going to fill my anxiety right now? What's going to answer where I am? And then as you begin to focus on those things that are pure and lovely and true and just and right, ask him how to plant those in your brain for me. I'm a. If I don't write it down, I forget it. That's just kind of who I am. so I have lists everywhere. Sticky notes are my friend.
So I'll write down things that he shows me that are beautiful, and I'll stick them up on sticky notes until I can really wear those things down into my heart and they become realities that I walk in. there's a verse that sits just up there over our sliding glass door that is there from a time that we were really having a struggle with a neighbor that lives just outside of that glass door. And, they were contentious, and they wanted to argue,
and it was stealing my peace. I was feeling like I could not go out in our backyard and enjoy, and I couldn't let our kids out in our backyard and let them be kids. And the lord took me to Exodus 1414. And it says, the lord will fight for you. You have only to be silent. So he was like, just don't get involved in it, child.
And so I wrote that first down, painted it on a, on a plaque, and stuck it up over my back door so that it would remind me to walk in who he was and let him be the one that fought for me with that neighbor. I didn't need to fight with that neighbor. I could have the love of the lord for that neighbor. And, you know, so ask him for those things. As you're looking to walk this out, what do I need to do to see more of
you in my circumstances? Because there are times when the Lord stills the waters and calms the storm. But there's a whole lot of times throughout scripture where he just says, I'm with you. Yep, I'm with you. I'm not changing, and I'm walking you through it.
That's right. Well, we hope you enjoyed that, and we hope that it helps you have real peace. Hey, if you like what you're hearing and you enjoy this podcast, please let other people know. you can like and subscribe to it so you can always get it whenever our next podcast pops up. Well, if you're enjoying this podcast and you would like to know more about what Becky and I are doing, you can go to our website at Matthew two five seven.com, and there you can learn more
about us and what we're doing. You also have an opportunity to support the different ministries that we're partnered with around the world and to help Becky and I go around the world and to teach and to preach these same messages that you keep hearing on our podcast. Well, guys, we want to thank you so much for hanging out with us, and we look forward to seeing you again next week on Trim the Wick podcast.
Love you.
Bye.