“First keep the peace within yourself then you can also bring peace to others.”
THOMAS À KEMPIS, 1420
In a recent interview, Barbara Walters asked highly accomplished actor Richard Dreyfuss a probing question: “If you could have one wish, what would you wish for?” Without hesitating, Dreyfuss replied, “Every time I have a birthday, every time I blow out candles, every time I see a shooting star, I wish the same thing—I wish for inner security.” In other words, he wished for peace. I have a feeling that Dreyfuss is like many people today who long for personal peace.
What do men want most in their homes? A survey taken a few years ago revealed a surprising answer to what men care most about and hope their wives understand. Men did not want expensive furniture, well-equipped garages, or a private study. What they wanted most was tranquility at home. In other words, they wanted peace.
While in Israel, I once took a taxi down to the old city of Jerusalem. The young Jewish cab driver, Asi, responded eagerly to my questions about spiritual matters.
“What do you believe about the Messiah?” I asked.
“I believe the most important thing that can ever happen to Israel is for the Messiah to come,” he said.
“Why do you believe that?”
“Because He will bring peace!”
We all long for peace—whether personal peace or political peace. We want peace with our next-door neighbors and between nations as well. In more than 3500 years of recorded civilization, only 286 years have been spent without war raging someplace on the globe. Yet during that same period, 8000 peace treaties have been signed. Someone pungently observed, “Peace is the brief, glorious moment in history when everybody stands around reloading.”
Do you realize that all of the peace monuments in Washington DC were built after a war? I am convinced that the primary cause of our difficulty in maintaining external peace is our lack of internal peace. Recently, I saw a large plaque near the United Nations building in New York City bearing Isaiah 2:4:
They will beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war anymore.
Unfortunately, this prophecy is yet to be fulfilled, as the news reminds us daily.
Even though part of the UN charter reads, “Our purpose is to maintain international peace and security and to that end: to take effective, collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace,” I am convinced that this noble goal is doomed without peace of another sort. The kind of peace I want to address is more than the absence of war; it is the presence of an inward, personal peace that doesn’t depend on the ever-changing circumstances of life and cannot be blown about by the winds of current events. I mean the inner confidence that God is in control of all circumstances, which allows one to face every difficulty with faith not fear.
Most of us long for that kind of peace, and it is a crucial step to becoming a person of influence and impact.
It’s Tough Out There
We live in the most technologically advanced time in history. My life and my job are radically different today than they were even 10 years ago, and I’m grateful for the many amenities that make my life easier. I would be dead in the water were it not for cell phones, fax machines, email, laptops, the Internet, laser printers, photocopy machines, jet planes, and automobiles equipped with global positioning systems.
Yet these technological marvels create their own problems. A USA Today article detailed how high-tech gadgets boost not only productivity but stress. It described how therapist Ofér Zur staged a conference called “Speed.com: The Search for Meaning in the New Millennium” in the heart of stressed-out Silicon Valley. Zur could see the drawn faces, worried looks, and preoccupied demeanors in his audience. He said “his personal alarm sounded when patients started bringing cell phones and laptops to his practice—and using them during the session!”
Zur further observed, “We’ve become obsessed with speed. We end up with lots of plans that we can’t execute and a full schedule that can’t be followed. The paradox of our timesaving tech gadgets is that we’ve wound up with no free time.”
One stressed-out secretary told her boss, “When this rush is over, I’m going to have a nervous breakdown. I earned it. I deserve it. And nobody’s going to take it from me!” Can you relate to this woman? Frankly, at this stage of my life I am so busy that I don’t have the time to have a nervous breakdown—and if I did, I would be too busy to enjoy it!
Without question, our warp-speed pace has added to the mess of stress and is taking a heavy toll. In short, increasing our pace has decreased our peace. Not long ago we marked the passage of time in seasons. But seasons begat monthly calendars, which begat day planners, which begat one-minute managers, which begat handheld personal organizers.
One can see cyber-stress and hyper-stress everywhere. Go to the grocery store and see how much small talk you get from the cashier, whose speed and efficiency is being tracked by computer even as she electronically scans your groceries, calls out your total, and digitally sweeps you out the door. Try engaging telephone solicitors or directory-assistance operators in any meaningful dialogue, and you won’t succeed; they work under precise, by-the-minute efficiency guidelines. The result of this fast-paced, time-warped approach? Increasing impatience, intolerance, and a lack of civility.
The workplace is a major incubator where stress is fed, nurtured, and kept warm. Lou Harris and Associates conducted a national study of the changing workforce for the Families and Work Institute. This five-year study sought in-depth information from nearly 3000 salaried and hourly employees. When asked a variety of questions about how tough today’s jobs are, 88 percent of the respondents said they work “very hard”; 68 percent said they work “very fast”; 60 percent said they still don’t get work done; 71 percent feel “used up.” The research concluded, “Workers are more frazzled, insecure, and torn between work and family than they were in 1977.”
Not even ministers are immune. I sometimes get depressed at the constant barrage of things that scream for my immediate attention. Emails multiply daily like rabbits. Turn off your cell phone even for a couple of hours, and when you turn it back on, it has gained 10 pounds just from the added voicemails. And don’t get me started on texting and tweeting!
I can relate to a Los Angeles Times article in which psychologist Richard Blackmon claimed, “Pastors are the single most occupationally frustrated group in America.” About 75 percent of pastors go through a period of stress so great that they consider quitting the ministry; 35 to 40 percent actually resign. Incidents of mental breakdown are so high that insurance companies charge about 4 percent extra to cover church staff members, compared to employees in other professions.
H.B. London of Focus on the Family cites a Fuller Institute of Church Growth study that found 90 percent of pastors work more than 46 hours a week; 90 percent believe they have inadequate training to cope with ministry demands; 50 percent feel unable to meet the needs of the job; 75 percent report a significant stress-related crisis at least once in their ministry; 80 percent believe that pastoral ministry has a negative effect on their families; and 33 percent say that being in the ministry is downright hazardous to their families.
I am not whining or complaining. I’m just telling you I live in the same zip code of life that you do. I experience stress, occupational demands, deadlines, and personal pressures ganging up on me and constantly trying to rob me of the peace we all desperately desire.
No one is immune to stress, frustration, and the feeling that we are on the autobahn of life. What is all this but the absence of peace. In this maelstrom of daily living, the stock value of peace increases every moment.
Making Peace
Did you know a manual exists that holds the secret to peace? I mean real peace, not the artificial peace that people look for in a pill, a bottle, or a transient experience. The Bible speaks a great deal about peace, describing three kinds in particular.
First, you can attain peace with others. “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone,” said the apostle Paul in Romans 12:18. This is external peace, necessary for human relationships to flourish, whether in neighborhoods or nations.
Second, you can achieve peace with yourself. The Scripture speaks of letting the “peace of Christ rule in your hearts” (Colossians 3:15). This is internal peace, the inner tranquility that escapes most people today.
Finally, the Bible speaks of peace with God. “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1). This is eternal peace. It comes from knowing that one has a right relationship with the sovereign God of this universe.
Peace Is a Process
How many times have you heard the words peace process concerning the strife in the Middle East? Even though the process doesn’t seem to be working, the concept is right—peace is a process. Peace is not a goal to be achieved but a process where one type of peace achieved leads to another. You cannot be at true peace with others until you are at peace with yourself. But you can never be truly at peace with yourself unless you are at peace with God, for all true peace flows from the only One who can give peace.
People are looking for peace today in every place but the right place. Why? Because they do not understand where true peace comes from. Some try to find peace in pills or pleasure or possessions, but they discover too late that these things offer only a synthetic, counterfeit peace that always wears off and wears out.
In 1987, Minnesota Twins superstar Kirby Puckett saw a childhood dream come true when he led his team to a World Series championship. Greg Gagne, the Twins shortstop, was asked to describe the scene in the clubhouse after their win. He recounted the hugging, the shouting, the laughing, the obligatory dousing of champagne over the players’ heads, and the presentation of the trophy. But the memory that would stick with him forever, he said, occurred when he noticed the normally ebullient Puckett sitting silently on a stool away from everyone, only 10 minutes into the celebration. Gagne wove his way through the media, players, and coaches, sat down beside Puckett, and asked him to describe his thoughts. With a deep sadness in his eyes, Puckett said, “If this is all there is to it, life is pretty empty.”
You may be able to relate to that ballplayer. You may have a great job, an excellent salary, a fine house, a wonderful family, good health, and maybe even a low golf handicap—but no real personal peace. You lack the inward peace that assures you that even though life often feels like a runaway roller coaster, Someone has a hand on the throttle keeping everything under control.
The Hebrew term for this kind of peace is shalom. Apart from God, enduring peace will always remain a pipe dream, a philosophical fantasy, a tantalizing fish always just beyond any bait or hook.
Where Peace Can Always Be Found
Let me let you in on a secret. Peace is not the absence of problems but the presence of God in the midst of your problems. Most people never find peace because they are looking for it. No one ever finds peace by looking for peace. Peace is not something you find; it finds you when you focus on the God who gives peace.
Many marriages go awry because men and women think an imperfect person can give them the perfect peace they are searching for. Have you heard the story of a woman at a cocktail party trying her best to look happy? Someone noticed a gargantuan sparkling rock on her finger and exclaimed, “Wow! What a beautiful diamond!”
“Yes,” she said, “it’s a Callahan diamond.”
“I wish I had one!” the onlooker replied.
“No, you don’t,” the woman said.
“Why not?”
“Because it comes with the Callahan curse.”
“The Callahan curse—what’s that?”
She sighed and said, “Mr. Callahan!”
Perfect peace can come only from a perfect peace-giver, and the only One who meets that qualification is God!
People are looking not only for peace but also for those who manifest that peace in their lives. The great leaders who inspire great followings project a sense of serenity and peace even when everything around them is falling apart. The peers of Abraham Lincoln commented that even in the darkest days of the Civil War, when the North endured defeat after defeat, the president never displayed a sense of panic in his heart or on his face. Instead, he manifested a peace born of an unshakable confidence in a provident God and a just cause.
Lincoln knew what a lot of stressed-out worrywarts need to learn: Peace is a matter of focus. A tremendous passage of Scripture states,
whose mind is stayed on you,
because he trusts in you.
(Isaiah 26:3 ESV)
Focusing on circumstances will cause anxiety, for circumstances constantly change and often spin beyond our control. But God never changes and nothing spins beyond His control.
Peace and worry are mutually exclusive. Worry throttles our confidence, chokes our perspective, and suffocates our spirit. Worry robs us of the peace that comes from knowing the God who can handle anything and for whom all things are possible. The reason we worry is that we do exactly the opposite of the actions that bring peace.
Worry is a “vote of no confidence” in God. Every time you worry, you are really saying, “God, I don’t believe You can handle this. I don’t believe You can be trusted in this matter. I guess I’m going to have to carry this burden all by myself.”
When you worry, you are really saying that God does not keep His promises. You think He lies or exaggerates when He says things such as the promise of Romans 8:28: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
I wish we could all take a cue from a man who was a tremendous worrier. He not only worried; he worried others with his worry. He couldn’t sleep because he worried so much. All he would do was pace the floor. One day he came out of his house a totally different person. He was whistling and singing at the top of his lungs. His next-door neighbor saw him and asked, “What in the world has happened to you?”
“Oh,” he replied, “I don’t have a worry in this world, and I am so happy.”
“And how did you get rid of your worries?” the neighbor asked.
“Well, I have hired a professional worrier. He does all my worrying for me.”
“That’s just wonderful. How much does this professional worrier cost?”
“He costs a thousand dollars a day.”
“A thousand dollars a day? You don’t have that kind of money. How are you going to pay him?”
“Oh, that’s his worry,” the man said.
You can give all your problems to Someone so you can enjoy peace even in the most difficult times. If you follow just one Scripture verse, it will bring peace in every situation: “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7).
No Need to Panic
One of the most powerful natural forces known to man is a hurricane. With winds of up to 155 miles per hour, rain up to 5 inches per hour, and the ability to create waves 10 stories high and wave surges up to 25 feet wide, hurricanes can level whole cities in minutes. Two components of a hurricane are especially interesting. One is the eye of a hurricane—the relatively calm center in which sinking air inhibits cloud and thunderstorm development. Immediately surrounding the eye is the eyewall, which features rising air and powerful rain clouds. In sharp contrast to the calm eye, the eyewall houses the most powerful element of the hurricane, including the strongest winds and the heaviest rains.
If you could hover above this incredibly powerful force of nature, you would see the strongest part of a hurricane occurring near its center, while at its center is relative calm, with no thunderstorms and little or no cloud cover.
Many years ago I was thrust, through no real fault of my own, into a great crisis in my ministry. It’s one of the most painful episodes of my life. Even recounting this event causes my stomach to knot up and feelings of fear to wash over me. Through the incompetence and irresponsibility of a trusted associate, I woke up one morning to discover that our church was in deep financial trouble—broke, 90 to 120 days in arrears on hundreds of thousands of dollars of unpaid bills. Conveniently, the person primarily responsible had moved on to another organization and left me holding the proverbial bag. (Not so coincidentally, the organization he went to experienced financial troubles leading to his and others’ terminations.)
I still remember walking into a meeting with the seven shell-shocked people who served on our finance team. They had also just learned of our dire situation and were giving me that “what are you going to do to get us out of this mess” look. I knew then that I was facing one of the greatest tests of organizational leadership in my life. My reaction would determine whether we would weather the storm. Either they would see panic in my eyes or sense a peace in my heart.
The meeting was the shortest of my career. I said one thing: “Gentlemen, I didn’t get us into this mess, but with God’s help we will get out of it.” I closed the meeting with prayer and left. I didn’t tell them I didn’t have a clue what I was going to do. I wish I could tell you that I didn’t weep, worry, and wring my hands as I wrestled with this situation. But what kept me calm in the eye of this storm was the unwavering conviction that God was in control. I was confident that if I would trust Him to do His part and I did mine, I could accept the consequences of my actions and the results of His.
I am thankful that we did get through this and even came out stronger as a church because of it. But the great lesson I learned is that people are drawn to those who can keep their head when everyone else is losing theirs.
Oceanographers tell us that the worst ocean storm never goes more than 25 feet beneath the surface. Gales can rip the ocean, causing tidal waves 100 feet high. But just 25 feet below the surface, the water is as calm as a pond on a sunny day in June.
The only place you will ever find peace in the midst of the storm is down deep in a walk with God. The peace found in God, through the Holy Scriptures and prayer, cannot be found, bought, or manufactured anywhere else. The Korean Christians have a saying that emerged from the persecution they have endured because of their faith in Christ. “We are just like nails,” they say. “The harder you hit us, the deeper you drive us; and the deeper you drive us, the more peaceful it becomes.”
Part of God’s purpose in allowing the storms to blow is to drive us deeper. Deeper into dependence, deeper into relationship with Him. Someone once said, “God takes life’s broken pieces and gives us unbroken peace.” When you focus on the One who has never met a problem He can’t solve instead of focusing on the problem you can’t solve, you will become a person of peace who exercises incredible influence over others.
People are drawn to peaceful leaders; they are inspired by those who have inner stillness and calm. Think of George Washington at Valley Forge, Franklin Roosevelt proclaiming “we have nothing to fear but fear itself,” or Ronald Reagan pushing the country through turmoil to a “shining city on a hill.”
Become a person of peace, and others will seek your advice when they face trouble. Furthermore, they will join forces with you when you are all in trouble. If the God within you reigns above you, you will not succumb to what is around you. Seek peace and become influential beyond your imagination.
Principle Three—Stay calm on the inside when things are chaotic on the outside.