Peace In A Pool Of Crazy

"Your mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens; Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds. Your righteousness is like the great mountains; Your judgments are a great deep; O Lord, You preserve man and beast. How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God! Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Your wings. They are abundantly satisfied with the fullness of Your house, and You give them drink from the river of Your pleasures. For with You is the fountain of life; In Your light we see light."  Psalm 36:5-9 (NKJV)

It seems inconceivable to some worldly minds that a person can find real peace and contentment in the middle of such craziness in the world around us, but the distinction that they may not yet recognize is that the craziness in the world belongs to man and man's perspective alone ... and the peace and contentment to be found ... flow from the God who created him. 

"My soul, wait silently for God alone, for my expectation is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation; He is my defense; I shall not be moved. In God is my salvation and my glory; The rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God." Psalm 62:5-7 (NKJV)

As heirs of Christ, true children of God, our focus isn't on the world's craziness but on our God who happens to be the source of everything that man needs and is also who man was created to desire. The desiring feature of mankind's makeup was intentionally included in his created being by God with the purposeful intention that man, desiring fulfillment, would look for Him and find Him and in doing so,  become fulfilled in Him. Whether we see that or not is found in a matter of perspective - whether we hold the world's view of this life and everything in it ... or God's. 

"The God who made the world and everything that is in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made by hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might feel around for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His descendants'."  Acts 17:24-28 (NKJV)

As followers of Christ, we should obviously know (because we've studied the scriptures) that God's perspective is the only one that matters and is the one that will no doubt deal with us in the end. The world's view, if it varies from God's at all, is potentially deadly and something we need to put off. It's cancerous effects are all around us. God's view on the other hand is something far different - life giving and eternally prosperous. The scriptures work together as a whole, complete, work from end to end, to give us God's perspective ... and a correct perspective of God Himself. These are just a couple of the primary, critical, reasons for investing ourselves earnestly in reading the scriptures and studying them for our own sake - because whether or not we choose to deal with them now, we will be dealt by them in the end.

"Therefore, brethren, we are debtors—not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together."  Romans 8:12-17 (NKJV)

Having God's true perspective includes His view of those who love Him and submit themselves to obey Him out of their love for Him. The wealth of all that that perspective includes tells me that He is with me always and that He loves me dearly because I do love and submit myself to Him as He requires. It tells me that the world can take away everything that I have, expecting me to live to suffer, but that I will triumph still because the same God that supplied me with what I had ... supplies me always and forever. So, what truly good thing can the world take from me that my God can't resupply in abundance? His perspective tells me that the world could take the life of this body expecting my defeat and that I will instead triumph forever through Christ, who reigns victorious - to live with Him eternally. So what can the world do to me that my doting Father will not see and act on my behalf to remedy? Death holds no fear for me, or any other calamity that world's perspective has fear of. I have peace instead of fear and contentment in place of greed. My God, my All-In-All, holds me in His hand as He does all of those who love and fear Him obediently. Our God's perspective reigns high and immoveable over the terminal perspective of the world. So, as His children,  we have available peace and contentment based on holding the correct, true, perspective. This because our God reigns, His promises are true, and His love for us is indescribable!

Those are a few  examples through the perspective of our God that leave my soul at peace because there is nothing that this world can do to me that can defeat me. After all, "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:32-33). My victory and my all is found in and through Christ. The only perspective that actually matters - the one that precedes, defies, and will judge the world's ... finds me contentedly at peace in a pool of crazy.

"Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him, on those who hope in His mercy, to deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine. Our soul waits for the Lord;

He is our help and our shield. For our heart shall rejoice in Him, because we have trusted in His holy name. Let Your mercy, O Lord, be upon us, just as we hope in You."  Psalm 33:18-22 (NKJV)

Once beggars and  convicts by sin in God's eyes, with nothing to offer, no case to argue, and no defense, as His children now, we have received mercy - a pardon for sin at a horrific price that He Himself paid. And now, through no possible effort of our own, we became heirs of heaven and the riches of our Father's grace, while live forever under His doting eye. This is my peace and contentment forever secured.

In Scripture...

"He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?" Micah 6:8 (NKJV)

“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command you today for your good? Indeed heaven and the highest heavens belong to the Lord your God, also the earth with all that is in it." Deuteronomy 10:12-14 (NKJV)