Steven Furtick - Finding Peace Amidst Chaos
This is an excerpt from: The Path of Peace
for so many years, I have thought that the thief of my peace was other people, or certain places or the schedule of my life, which is kinda funny 'cause I'm the one who said yes to all that stuff that I'm stressed about. And so I'm now asking God to take away the things that I committed to and I've tried so long, you know, to arrange my life in such a way that I would no longer experience those stressful events and stressful people and if God would just change them and if just everybody would act the way they should act for a little while this Christmas.
But the Lord has been speaking to me in these last few days about the path of peace and what I realize the more I reflected on this promise of peace that God gives us, Isaiah 9:6, "His name will be called Wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father and the Prince of peace". But notice the prophet didn't call Him the Prince of convenience. Or the Prince of ease, or the Prince of comfort or the Prince of my preferences, because a lot of times, when God promises me peace, what I hear in translation is that God is promising me convenience, or God is promising me ease, or God is promising me my preference being met. But the Lord has been speaking to me and maybe you don't need to hear this, but just in case you do, it is impossible to experience peace when you are expecting perfection.
See my problem, I'm coming to realize this, it's not other people, it's not the place, it's not the pace, and it's not the problem, the problem is not the problem, like I can tell you the problem is not the problem because Jesus was born in a manger. The angel appeared to shepherds, so the shepherds were the people that you would least expect the Harold to make the announcement of the birth of the Son of God, and yet He showed up to the least likely people in an unlikely place. So it's not the people, it's not the place, it's not the pace, the shepherds were always on the move from place to place to place to place, it's not the place, it's not the pace, it's not the people, it's not the problem, here's my problem, my problem is that I can't receive peace because I'm expecting perfection.
And the angel said, are y'all gonna help me preach or is it just me today? I make it quick, here's the whole message, if you need to go, if you got things to do, I'll give it to you right now and you can go on and get to Target and hopefully, everything will turn out alright. The enemy of your peace is not the people, it is not other places, it is not how fast life is or the way the world is; the enemy of your peace is your insistence on perfection. And when heaven came down and appeared to humanity, it was not in the form of perfection, in fact, God did not come down looking like a deliverer, He came down looking like a dependent, He came down as baby.
And so when the Prince of peace came, He didn't come dressed in power, He came in Pampers, why? Because God wanted you to know that He's going to bring you peace, but not like you expected Him to bring it. It's not gonna look like you pictured it. It's not always gonna fit your preferences. It's not always going to live up to your exact specifications of the performance of people. So if I'm going to live at peace, I've got to surrender my expectation of perfection. I feel like I can leave. Every Christmas party is gonna so much better that you attend because of what I just told you. Every place you set your foot over the next three days, is gonna be so much more peaceful because you just realized that peace isn't found in a place, peace is not found in a set of circumstances that is problem free, it is not that He delivers me from it, it's that He meets me.
Can I show you something real quick? He said that He will guide us with the light in the valley. He didn't take us out of the valley, "Ye though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil". I'm at peace on the path. Why? Not because I'm not going through it, but because I'm not going through it alone. See, there's somebody with me that is greater than what's against me. The path to peace, it's a strange path that God would send His Son as a child, that God would burst the eternal cosmos and enter into creation in the form of the most imperfect being.
I know some of you disagree, 'cause I hear you saying things about babies that I just don't personally agree with and we can agree to disagree, it's Christmas, we just, you just, "Oh, she's, he's so perfect". If you say that, you've never taken one home. That's what I know. Huh? And so it's a strange path to peace, you know, God wants to come and set things right, He should come down as a warrior. Not a weakling. Why not skip that stage. Jesus shoulda come 24 years old, full of testosterone, and yet He comes tiny, infant, into a desperate place, you know the story about Joseph, waited to the last minute to Air BnB for the census, ended up in a cold place and the presence of God was born there.
The path to peace, it's a strange one, that the path to peace for Jesus would lead through Gethsemane where He would pray, "God, if there's any other way than Me going and experiencing their wrath from Your hand for them, let this cup pass from Me". A path for peace for us would lead Jesus though the Kidron valley where He would ultimately as we come to understand more than Zechariah understood in Luke 1 whose prophesying about his own son, John the Baptist, who prepared the way for Jesus, Who would guide us in the path to peace. But the path to peace with God, for us, lead Jesus to a hill, where He died at the hands of sinful men, and it's a strange path to peace, we have to admit.
That He would come in weakness and die in weakness to become our strength, it's a path to peace, it's a strange thing about peace because whatever you identify as the source of your stress determines what you consider the source of your peace. And that's why I don't like to blame people for my stress. 'Cause if people brought me the stress, then I need people to change for me to have peace. But I'm past the point in my life of wanting for people to have to act a certain way for me to have peace in my own heart.
And I love what the angel said, as Abby was quoting that Scripture and she was, did it perfectly and I don't even wanna do it myself 'cause she did it so good and I don't want to do, I don't want to mess it up, but she said, "And the angel said unto them, 'Fear not for behold I bring you good news of great joy'". Because the first thing that the shepherds felt in the field when the announcement of Jesus Christ came forth from the angel was not faith, it was fear. See, we think that the presence of God is always going to make us feel better and comfortable, but the first thing the shepherds felt was fear.
See, they found peace, but they found it through fear; peace did not come to them directly, it had to pass through their fear, and they found God in the place of their greatest fear, in the fields where they were keeping the sheep from predators at night, they were lowly people in a lonely place and here comes the angel says, "Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace". Now notice this, the peace is on earth, but it's not from earth. The peace is on earth, but it's not of earth.
See I don't want this plastic peace that comes from people. I've learned that if the peace comes from people, people can take it away. If it comes from situations, situations can change and take it away, so I don't want a peace that comes from a promotion at work, I don't want a peace that comes from a convenient circumstance, I don't even want a peace that comes from a feeling, I don't want a peace that comes from a situation. I want a peace that the world didn't give and the world can't take it away. Come on give Him praise if you got an unshakeable peace, an unspeakable joy.
I read that Scripture all week, the path to peace, what is it that I need to get out of the way in my life to experience peace. So I'm not running around all the time, just concentrating on all the missing pieces. And now I'm missing peace 'cause all I can see is the pieces I'm missing. 'Cause when you're a perfectionist like I am, Enneagram type 1, the thing that God will give you as a prescription for your perfectionism is children. And I am on a dosage of three children. Three children per day guarantees that there will never be a moment in your house that is completely peaceful. I'm telling you right now, I can count on zero toes how many times in the last seven years I've had three peaceful children, all at the same time in one house.
So you know what I'm learning to have to do? I'm having to learn to take my peace in pieces. Because if I wait until everything is peaceful, if I wait until every child is happy, if I wait until everyone is getting along, if I'm waiting for peace, if I'm waiting for every child to bow their head and say the blessing and clear their dishes and thank their mom, I've learned to celebrate God if just one kid puts the bowl in the sink, forget about the dishwasher, that's a Red Sea, Old Testament miracle, just in the sink, even in the sink is a blessing, I'll celebrate one bowl in the sink. See this Christmas, you can't wait for everybody to get along, if there's even a piece of peace, you gotta thank God for it and snatch and take it and celebrate it.