Weekly Devotional: Perfect peace (6 in Hope and Trust in God series)
Photo: Gordon Wrigley, flickr
You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord himself, is the Rock eternal. Isaiah 26:1–9
Each January I ask the Lord to reveal a special word and/or verse of Scripture for the upcoming year. In my twenties, when I was entering a new season of intimacy with God, he sparked the above verse from Isaiah. I felt like shouting it from the rooftops, for the words of the prophet from thousands of years before spoke electrically into my life.
I had been learning to hear God’s voice, but as I mentioned previously, I got into trouble when I misheard the Lord. That made for a roller-coaster of emotions, with my feelings up sky-high one day and dashed the next. I saw that Isaiah’s words would provide the balance that my emotions so desperately needed. As I trusted in the Lord, keeping my mind steadfast and centered on him, he would keep me in perfect peace. I would no longer be hit by any passing wave of emotion, but would be anchored in God’s word. To change the metaphor, he would be my rock forever.
It turns out that having this steadfast mind means having a capacity for imagining in the Hebrew, according to John N. Oswalt in the NIV Application Commentary: Isaiah (p. 304). As we fill our imaginations with God and his word, our lives are changed. We might decide not to expose our minds to certain books or movies so to keep our hearts fixed on God. For example, I concluded I couldn’t watch any more of a television show about a medical coroner. Please know that I’m not making a blanket statement here, but I realized that the dead bodies were filling my imagination and I needed to stop. The line of what is acceptable for you may be different; God directs as we stop and ask.
How’s your level of peace today?
Prayer: Lord, you are our rock and we trust in you. Fill our minds, hearts and imaginations with your sweet images of your true riches.
Hello! 
So true, Amy. When we keep our minds focused on Him, we can be at peace no matter the circumstances. They may not change, but our perspective can change when we know God is right there with us and will never leave.
Blessings to you!
Thank you Amy, I needed this……
Thank you for this post. We will never have perfect peace when we focus on things of this world; only when we focus on God can we receive His perfect peace. Thanks too for the reminder that we need to be careful what we fill our minds with.