In a world where Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27), we must fight for our peace. Regarding peace, Paul wrote,

“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:6-7).

Paul explains that God’s peace can guard you.

From the Old Testament, Isaiah helps us: “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You (Isa 26:3).

If peace is not just possible but expected, why then is it hard to maintain it?

Let me suggest six pressures that can erode your peace.

 

Six Pressures that Can Erode Your Peace

Through Christ, we can experience great peace. Yet, the sad reality for too many Christians is this: peace alludes them. In the previous sentence, I was tempted to write that it is the sad reality for most Christians. Most or too many, whichever it is, far too many Christians suffer from a lack of personal peace.

If you find yourself living without peace, please know that you are not alone. Although it is easy to preach the verses above, living them eludes many. Pressures in life often erode the peace that is provided in Christ.

What pressures threaten your peace?

 

Complicated culture

Would you call our culture complicated? Maybe you would use even harder verbs for it. Culture suffocates. As Paul writes, all creation groans for redemption (Rom 8:19-23). Until that day, we live in a world dominated by Satan himself who is the prince and power of the air among children of wrath (Eph 2:2-3). CRT. Woke ideology. LGBTQ+. QAnon. War. Social media.

In a complicated culture where it is difficult to keep your bearings with what you know, much less stay on top of all the things of which you are unaware, your peace can erode rather quickly. What do we do? From where does our help come? As we see all the children and grandchildren in the world, what hope do they have? For those of us over thirty-five, we recoil at the society as we know it versus what we have known.

 

Challenging circumstances

In addition to our complicated culture, most of us face challenging circumstances. In fact, a complicated culture helps produce challenging circumstances. However, by personal experience, we all recognize that culture is only a part of it. Over the past two years, the entire world has suffered under a man-made pandemic. Inflation threatens the middle and low income families all across America. Food prices. Car prices. Home prices. Rent cost.

What would you add? Personal sickness? Loss of a loved one? Educational challenges for you or your family? Employment difficulties? Small business woes? Infertility?

Possibly your challenging circumstances are not from what we would consider negative but all the positive things in your life which can produce pressure as well. Raising a family? Church responsibilities? Opportunities?

Striving to honor Christ in the midst of these challenging circumstances can rob your peace.

 

Well-intentioned friends / relationships

Friends. Got a love them, right? J

Some of our most meaningful moments in life will be with our friends, family, and church family. Yet, some of those same well-intentioned folks will create a mess for us. They will not create the difficulties because they desire to hurt us, yet they will still increase our pressures exponentially. The difficulties could be of many types. And, get this, from people who love us. A spouse. A child. A parent or grandparent. A fellow church member. A life-long or not so life-long friend. Good people who fundamentally love us but for lack of wisdom or simple sin hurt us or produce hardship for us.

What about those not-well-intentioned folks? Those of course exist as well. Your life may swell with those individuals. It only takes one or two to really impact us.

Relationship difficulties – either sinful or not – can erode our peace as well.

 

Confusing priorities

Everyone knows what is best for you. Your family. Your employer. The government. Possibly others in the church. Your neighbor.

Every school or university – secular and nonsecular – willingly define leadership, success, and the “way” it should be for you.

Many individual Christians, famous-ish leaders in the church, and internet sensations glady explain how to be on top, successful, and all that you can be.

Plus, generally, we have our own sense from reading the Scriptures and seeking to follow the leading of the Spirit toward righteousness as to what our priorities should be.

Here’s the reality: you can’t do all of it. You can’t please everyone. Period.

To hear what folks say or project onto you can make you lose peace as well. You can’t pray enough, read enough, family worship enough, serve enough, or whatever enough to please everyone. You just can’t.

 

Personal Weakness

Suffering under the burden of fallen bodies, we all have our own personal weaknesses. Some of those can really burden us in day-to-day living. In my own family, church family, counselees, and those who contact me through social media, weaknesses abound. Sometimes physical. Emotional. Spiritual. All kinds of weaknesses prevail.

These weaknesses of the inner man and outer man exist regardless of our walk with the Lord. Paul prayed three times for God to take away his thorn in the flesh (2 Cor 12:8) – a weakness of some sort. God did not. Therefore, Paul wrote, “Therefore I am content with weaknesses, with insults, with troubles, with persecutions and difficulties for the sake of Christ, for whenever I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor 12:10).

However, similar to wearing a heavy backpack over the course of a long day hiking, the burdens of our personal weaknesses can wear very heavy on us. We struggle. Sometimes, we feel like buckling under the weight. Although our brothers and sisters-in-Christ are supposed to be there for us to help us bear our burdens, that does not always seem to work out as prescribed in Galatians 6.

The result: our personal weaknesses can erode our peace with God.

 

Personal Sin 

Your personal sin also quickly erodes your peace with God. Your personal sin remains even though the power of the flesh was broken at salvation. Those sins that easily beset us tend to be the real pesky ones that nip at our heels, steal our grapes, and never quit beckoning us.

Without me writing a long list, you know these. For some, it is lust. For others, discontentment. And others, ____________. Anger? Impatience? Love of control? For each person, we easily get caught by our own cocktail of desires, passions, and temptations.

The longing for future glorification helps us when we are focused on it (Rom 8:24-25, 26-30). We eagerly wait – when walking in the Spirit – with endurance. When our sin continues to plague us day after day, we can lose hope and peace.

 

Present Suffering 

All of these pressures that can erode peace fall under the category of present suffering.

Possibly, you, like me, occasionally get carried away in the ebb and flow of these sufferings/pressures. In one moment, we enjoy worship, reading the Scriptures, and prayer. In the next, we lose all peace.

What kinds of things can steal your peace in just a moment? A text message. Look. Word. Misunderstood interaction. Car trouble. Lack of coffee. Bad news. Government regulation. And on, and on, and on.

In just one moment, peace erodes, is eradicated, and you are left without hope.

 

Tomorrow, part two. I will help you know how to protect your peace in the midst of your pressures.

 

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