We had plenty of potential peace robbing situations on our recent vacation to the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
To start off, we had to arrive a day late due to scheduling conflicts with our cabin. Peace reigned as we focused on the truth that God knew how many days we needed to relax and to hear from Him.
Next up, due to the heavy snow the Eastern Sierra’s got this year, the creek running at the entrance to our cabin was a river! We tested it out and thought we could cross. Wrong. We got stuck. We laughed about it, though, and asked God to get us out of it. After trying a few things, He sent an “angel” in a Jeep with a tow rope to pull us out! Peace wins.
This, however, meant that we had to leave our van on the opposite side of this river, where God saw fit to guard it with a head of cattle! Pretty cool, huh? Yet, this raised another potential peace robber. We now had to walk across this ice cold river every time we wanted to do things we had planned. Victory came as we simply focused on Jesus, put on our water shoes (had them for kayaking – who knew we’d need them to cross a river!) and walked with our God, literally.
I’ll finish with one last story, though I literally could go on. We had three straight days of rain; so, we got the weather report before kayaking on Gull Lake. There was a 40% chance of afternoon rain, which meant a 60% chance of sunshine, right? So we got out early and hit the lake. It was a beautiful day. We kayaked around Gull and were about to take another spin, when both my wife and daughter said we should call it day. It sounded and felt to them like rain was coming. If you know me, you know what I wanted to do. The truth is, however, God is changing my life in this area. I don’t have to conquer anymore, which is a definite peace robbing feeling. It was okay to have only kayaked a couple of hours. It was okay to head back, which is exactly what we did.
Praise God He’s changing me. The moment we got our kayaks out of the water, the afternoon showers showed up early! And it rained hard. So we hung out in the van and waited patiently on God to let up on the rain so we could load the kayaks to travel home. He did. We did. And not one minute later did it hail…hard!!
There’s a saying in the Sierras, “Give the weather ten minutes and it’ll change.” Yes it does, but your peace doesn’t. This vacation constantly changed from what we had expected to the crazy unexpected, which could have led to great internal stress and a bummer vacation. Yet, we focused on the truths Jesus gave us and let Him keep us in perfect peace just as He said He would.
Life changes come from all directions. Your peace doesn’t, however, as it comes from knowing and being in relationship with the Truth, Jesus, throughout those crazy unexpected changes.