Peace in All Kinds of Weather
One of my goals for this new year is to walk in greater peace and awareness of God’s presence, no matter my circumstances. It’s one of those easy-to-say but harder-to-do realities of the Christian faith. Yet I fully believe it is possible. Jesus died to give us peace that surpasses our understanding, peace that doesn’t make sense in the space we are in (see Phil. 4:7). And his presence is always with us, comforting and providing and guiding, no matter how violent the storm (see John 16:33; Luke 8:23-25).
No hardship or grief we face is mightier than his sacrifice on the cross. His peace and presence are always available, and I don’t want to settle for less than what he died to give me.
Only a few days into the new year, my commitment to peace and presence entered a real hurricane. Without warning, grief and loss flooded in. If you’ve faced pain that feels unbearable—pain so deep you feel it in your body and everything in you longs to flee—then you know the kind of storm that hit.
And in that space, on a day when I felt like I could hardly breathe, God whispered in my ear, When you feel like you are drowning, and you can’t breathe—I will teach you to breathe underwater.
I needed that promise.
And the gentle reminder that no matter how difficult life becomes, Jesus has made a way for us to live in his fullness. He taught Peter to (literally) walk on the waves (see Matt. 14:22-33). He can teach us to (emotionally/spiritually) breathe underwater.
So I began declaring over myself, “I can breathe underwater. I can breathe in the middle of the storm.” Those words and Jesus’ promise to me strengthened my heart to believe that I could make it through—and that I could be full of his peace and presence while doing it.
In the natural, most people can hold their breath underwater for 15 seconds. With proper training, swimmers often learn to hold their breath for several minutes. And the current Guinness world record for holding one’s breath underwater is just over 24 minutes. The difference between seconds and minutes is simple—practice.
Jesus has provided his peace always—but knowing how to live in it takes intentionality and practice. If we want to learn to emotionally breathe underwater, we need to train our hearts and minds just as swimmers train their lungs.
So how do we practice a storm-weathering, underwater-breathing peace?
1. Seek Perspective. Jesus came to upend existing religious structures and beliefs, so in that sense, he “did not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matt. 10:34 CSB). He never promises us external peace. So much about having peaceful circumstances is beyond our control. Yet in the gospels, Jesus repeatedly tells people to “Go in peace,” or declares, “Peace be with you” over them in the midst of chaos. The first practice of peace is in reframing our expectations of peace. Real peace begins in our hearts. It begins in the middle of the storm.
Every storm is an opportunity for peace, because only in the storm is our peace tested and proven. This perspective shift doesn’t remove the pain or stress of our circumstances, but it does inject heavenly purpose into them. Only in the storm can we cultivate inner peace. When we find ourselves in that chaotic space, let’s see the opportunity and invite God’s peace-creating work in our hearts.
“Jesus, teach me to cultivate peace in the storm. Help me to prioritize my inner peace over external peace in my circumstances, knowing that a heart at peace positions me to receive your healing and restoration in my circumstances.”
2. Declare Truth. In my book, The Way Back to Hope, I share about a time when we faced a possible worst-case scenario with one of our children and how God helped me find strength in that place of not knowing what would happen. He showed me that even though I couldn’t control the outcome, I could trust him to get me through. No matter what happened, if I leaned on him, he would always be enough.
The second practice of peace is found in hearing God’s truth for our situations and then clinging to and declaring it over our lives. The truth that God can get me through anything kept me grounded even when my world seemed about to collapse. It enabled me to rise above the fears of “what if” and to know that even if the scariest “what ifs” happened, I could still be OK in Jesus. When the storm hits hard, let’s learn to hear God’s voice in the storm and intentionally cling to his promises.
“Jesus, here I am in this crazy place, and I need to know what you are saying. Help me to hear your whisper over the noise of the storm. I want to know your truth for me in this space. Give me the courage to believe it and declare it, no matter how scared or overwhelmed I feel.”
3. Pursue His Presence. God’s presence trumps all feeling. His presence is a deep well of calm that enables us to step outside of the feelings of the moment and live in his eternal perspective. The third practice of peace is found in our oneness with Christ. When we become aware of his presence with us, we become aware of his goodness, his might, his comfort, and so forth, and who he is overshadows the pain of our moments. Learning to become aware of his presence with us strengths our hearts in a way that nothing else can. God doesn’t always take our pain away all in a moment. He doesn’t always silence the storm instantly. But he does surround us, hold us, and teach us to breathe underwater.
“Jesus, in the middle of this storm, I worship you. Surround me with your presence, and help me to see your goodness. Help me to feel your comfort and strengthening in my heart so that I can bravely face the storm.”
The practice of peace isn’t easy, but it is normal for believers. Jesus has already made it possible. He’s given us his peace; now we get to learn to live in it.
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