{"id":11148,"date":"2017-07-05T00:10:52","date_gmt":"2017-07-05T07:10:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lccredding.com\/lcc\/?p=11148"},"modified":"2017-07-05T00:10:52","modified_gmt":"2017-07-05T07:10:52","slug":"july-5-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/2017\/07\/05\/july-5-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"July 5, 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"
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“You will keep him (her) in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he (she) trusts in You.”<\/em> Isaiah 26:3<\/span><\/p>\n

Perfect Peace<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

I woke up from a series of unpleasant dreams\/thoughts this morning\u2026 dreams of work: reviewing work I\u2019d already done and finding mistakes\u2026 looking at looming piles of it around me, thinking it\u2019ll never all get done. Dreams of relationships: trying desperately to help someone see what is really going on in their life, and what might be a better path to take, and what the enemy is trying to do. Finally, thinking about a family\u2019s seemingly unfair situation where the mom is miraculously showing very few signs of aggressive stage 4 cancer, but the same day she will be going down to San Francisco for a final surgery, her husband will be seen at the same hospital for recently diagnosed melanoma. I felt utterly overwhelmed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then today\u2019s verse softly floated across my mind. I could feel my muscles relax and a smile come to my face. I immediately got out of bed and looked it up. Why will You keep those whose mind is stayed (propped, upheld, unmoved, firm) on You in perfect peace (completeness, soundness, contentment)? Because<\/em> they trust in You. The word trust here is to set one\u2019s hope and confidence upon, to be secure\u2014to fear nothing for oneself.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I purposefully choose to focus on, and trust in, the Lord, I am signifying (expressing, indicating) I believe He is capable of doing whatever needs to be done in any given situation. I am trusting that He knows best and will work all things together for good (Romans 8:28). The result is perfect peace that passes all understanding and guards our hearts and minds, and<\/em> which only comes through Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:6-7).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The work pressure fades away the easiest. It occupies mind space\u2014the part of me who wants to do a good job, do my fair share, and succeed. It\u2019s the relational things that fade more slowly\u2014the heart issues. The pain of seeing people I care about being deceived (hurt, and hurting), and seeing what unforgiveness and the resulting bitterness can do to a family. The questions of why a family, going through such an ugly disease with one parent, and just when the sun appears to be shining through the rain, a hurricane is allowed to hit the other parent\u2014I don\u2019t understand these things. I probably will never understand, but I know deep in my \u201cknower\u201d that God does.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve seen miraculous restoration in relationships and health. I\u2019ve also seen both end in death. Again, God understands and He is in control. So, I will look to Him for insight, comfort, strength and peace. As for the people I am concerned about\u2014I will pray they do the same.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLord, help us to keep our minds stayed on You. Help us to trust You. Thank you for Your promise of perfect peace when we do. Amen.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“You will keep him (her) in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he (she) trusts in You.” […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-women"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p92wjD-2TO","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11148\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}