All Joy and Peace

More peace and joy.

Romans 15:13
¹³ May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (NIV)

David cried out to God, “Let the bones you have crushed rejoice.” When life has fallen hard and fast upon our heads, we cry out for joy and peace. God has promised unspeakable joy and incomprehensible peace. These are ours to take. God does not withhold anything from His children. But there is a caveat.

The Lord fills us with joy and peace ‘as’ we trust Him. The Spirit inspires Paul to join together our ability to trust with the infilling of joy and peace. When we trust more, we open the window of our hearts to His peace and joy. Trusting less closes the window. God has poured out His goodness to us, but we must open the window of our hearts. Trusting in the Lord, moves the latch and slides the pane up and the breeze of all that is God refreshes our soul. How open is your window?

This is a recurring theme in Scripture. Proverbs remind us of God’s clearing out a straight path for us when we trust Him with all of our hearts. For a greater understanding of how to trust God and end the negative cycles in your life, I recommend my book “With All Your Heart.”

Trust is different from faith. Trust is putting into action what you claim to have faith in. Trust is not the absence of fear. Often, we must trust God as fear runs through our veins.

Imagine the Israelites who have just left the nation that had enslaved them for 400 years. God led them into what seemed like a trap of death until the wind started blowing and the waters of the Dead Sea opened a way. But the water gathered forming a huge wall of water. The water wasn’t transformed into a solid block of ice. It was still water held back by an invisible wall, an angel, the hand of God, something they could not see. I can see their trepidation as they walked on dry ground overshadowed by the movement of water. It made no sense and they had to fight their fear.

Trust is following God when things don’t make sense. In my book, I go deeper into what keeps us from trusting. There are many things that are hard to work through. The question for us is how wide open we want the window to our hearts to be.

Prayer: Lord, give me insight into my own soul to see what keeps me from trusting you with all my heart and give me the wisdom to overcome. Amen.