What is Stealing Your Peace?

It’s the middle of the work week and by now you have had numerous of opportunities to have your peace stolen. What has tried to steal your peace this week? Was it someone on your job, your children, your mate, or the bank teller or the driver who pulled in-front of you? Whatever it was, it came to disturb your peace. When I was searching for a definition of peace, I found this: “Absence of mental stress or anxiety”; “harmony and tranquility.” Even reading the definitions made me want to work even harder to remain in peace throughout my day.

But how do we achieve and remain in peace, in a world that seems to thrive on conflict, war and confusion? We simply decide and choose how we will respond. How other people behave doesn’t have to determine how we respond. When someone comes to me with a situation that could take away my peace, I ask myself this question, “Will I react or will I respond.” When I choose to re-act, and sometimes I do, it almost always brings about more dis-comfort and dis-cord. But when I choose to respond from a place of love and peace, I find myself open to new possibilities and solutions. I am able to do this when I remain focused on who I am. I have learned that what others think about me is none of my business. I get my opinions of myself from a Loving God. I know that everything I think, say and do is a statement of who I am. Therefore, I must choose to behave with dignity, grace and poise even when others decide to behave unkindly.

When they say things that are un-true about me, or do things to me that are unfair, I have learned to remain true to who I know that I am, or shall I say, who God says that I am. This keeps me in perfect peace. It no longer becomes about what is happening outside of me, but what is going on inside my heart. Inside my heart is where Love resides, where God resides and it is where I can live and respond from. I become a better me when I do this. So just remember, the next time someone comes to rob you of your peace, you can thank them because they are really causing you to become a better you. And when we understand what peace really is, we will do anything to remain there.