{"id":4132,"date":"2019-07-31T07:25:11","date_gmt":"2019-07-31T11:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theprodigalpig.com\/?p=4132"},"modified":"2019-07-22T11:35:04","modified_gmt":"2019-07-22T15:35:04","slug":"the-power-of-peace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.theprodigalpig.com\/?p=4132","title":{"rendered":"The Power of Peace"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Me:  You look at peace.<\/p>\n

Prodigal:  I am right now.<\/p>\n

Me:  Peace is something that is worth searching for.<\/p>\n

This is from the book  Reclaiming Your Heart:  A Journey Back to Laughing, Loving, and Living  by Denise Hildreth Jones<\/p>\n

Another important–and healing–aspect of living with an alive heart comes as a direct result of trusting our big, capable God with our past hurts and failures.  Instead of holding our grudges or deep wounds close or, even worse, holding them over someone else’s head, we learn to let them go and make peace with both our past and present.  This almost always involves forgiving others and ourselves, seeking forgiveness from those we’ve hurt, and then deliberately choosing to let go of our resentments.  Not necessarily “forgive and forget,”  but leaving those hurts and failures in God’s hands and refusing to let them control us.  Again, this will be a process, not a one-time choice.  But it is amazing how making  peace with the past reduces our own controlling tendencies and also protects us from the pain of others’ control tactics.  It’s hard to lay a guilt trip, for instance, on a person who has already dealt with his or her guilt.<\/p>\n

See, friend, peace is not the absence of opposition, as a controlling heart would have us believe.  Real peace is the confident, non frantic trust that David talked about in Psalm 131:2–“Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with his mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.”<\/p>\n

It’s the peace of a person with a reclaimed heart who truly understands how big and dependable God is.<\/p>\n

We will never be able to control what people think about us.  We will never be able to control other people’s actions toward us.  We will never be able to control how life will turn out for us.<\/p>\n

Sure, we may manipulate these things for a season, but the effect won’t be lasting.  So why wear ourselves out trying?  Why not realize that our God is big enough to take care of everything that concerns us.  Why not rest ourselves on his breast and enjoy what his love and protection afford us—sleep, peaceful sleep, with God, and God only, in control.<\/p>\n

Psalm 119:165<\/p>\n

Those who love your law have great peace, and nothing causes them to stumble<\/p>\n

Jennifer Van Allen<\/p>\n

www.theprodigalpig.com<\/p>\n

www.faithincounseling.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Me:  You look at peace. Prodigal:  I am right now. Me:  Peace is something that is worth searching for. 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