You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You because he trusts in You

Who do you go to when you when you are hurt? I think we must all have this tendency to lash out when we are hurt. The saying that hurt people, hurt people seems to be true. I recently got some insect bites, and it was driving me crazy with the itching. I picked at it and picked at it, and continued to pick at it, scratching the scabs off and making a wound out of my hurt. Eventually I found a cream that I could apply that stopped the itching, and it’s now starting to heal.

If I have found the cream earlier, my hurt would have been healed earlier, and I found the Lord speaking to me through this simple experience. In the physical, it’s more than possible to take a hurt that the body could easily heal, and by failing to take care of it turn a tiny wound into a major problem. As in the physical, so in the spiritual.

What I am trying to say is that the way that we deal with what life throws at us can hurt us, but if we deal with it in the right way, will not ultimately harm us. I am using hurt here, by analogy with the physical, as a wound that easily heals, and I am using harm as a wound that could become permanent. So how are we to deal with what life throws at us without it becoming a permanent wound?

The promise of perfect peace is given a) to whose mind is stayed on him, and b) who trust in him. This last week for me, has had elements of both joy, and pain. My initial tendency always seems to be to concentrate on the pain, and forget the things that brought me joy. The Lord brought this verse (Isaiah 26:3) to my mind this morning, and I at once sought to align my thinking with what he is telling me through it. Since I have learned to trust him, this is much easier than it used to be. God is always, and has always been trustworthy. This is not the issue, the issue is my experiencing his trustworthiness. And it starts with choosing to trust him, and in this way little by little, gaining the experience of his trustworthiness. It builds and builds in my life and, as I say, with the ongoing experience, it has become easier to trust him. In addition, it has become easier to take authority over my thoughts, and bring them captive into obedience to him, and so to claim his promise.

Father, I thank you that you are always trustworthy, and that as I choose to trust you, I increasingly experience your trustworthiness. This draws me closer to you, and helps me when life gets hard to choose to look to you, to look above the circumstances, and to increasingly come into the peace that passes understanding that only you can give. In Jesus name amen