Finding Peace In Today's Struggle
Finding Peace in Today's Struggle
We’re talking about finding peace in today's struggle. Earlier in the month we talked about how peace is not the absence of trouble. When everything in our lives is turned upside down and we feel desperate, it's hard to even think how we're going to get through the day. Peace can feel unattainable. So how do we find peace in today's struggle?
We're going to cover three main points. The first thing is why we run from pain. Number two, we're going to talk about how pain and peace go together. And three, we're going to talk about how we can find comfort in our pain. No one wants to feel uncomfortable or experience pain, but we live in a broken world with lots of problems. No one listening to this wants to accept that life is painful. I don't want to either, but why is it important to accept life is painful and that it just hurts?
What's a struggle that you're dealing with right now that you are having trouble coming to terms with?
So, this is a pressing pain point for me that has been today, but also for a while. My two children whom I love dearly are not following the Lord. They have rejected faith for their own reasons. While I still see seeds of the truth that's been planted in them, and that gives me hope, it's a big point of pain that they really don't value the things of God. They're not following Him. They're pretty respectful about my journey, of faith, but they're not following God. It's my biggest pain point.
We know life is painful and that it hurts. How do we accept this?
It’s so difficult. Who wants to accept pain as part of our reality? I want to avoid it. I want to escape it. I want to minimize it. I want it to be quick. I want a solution. We need to accept it. If we don't, we cope in ways that are unhealthy, to avoid it, to distract ourselves. Sometimes substances, sometimes working too much, whatever it might be. None of these things affect the problem. The pain and suffering are still there. It can feel better in some ways to run from pain, but facing it allows us to experience it and then know what we need while we're hurting.
It's important to point out that it's not wrong to want to run from pain. When God created this earth, the Garden of Eden, things were perfect. It's natural for us to want to get back to that state where all is right. We don't want to run from pain, we want to not feel discomfort, but also we shouldn't beat ourselves up that we want to escape it. There’s no shame in not wanting life to be uncomfortable.
Sometimes the pain is so compelling, and you want to know why this is happening to me. Why am I suffering? Why God, why this, why that? These questions don’t get you anywhere. We need to start asking what am I doing here? What are you doing, God? What is the reason for this? And then how do I get through this? How do I keep moving forward? Why, Lord, why? Instead of, “Lord, what are you doing through this? What are you trying to teach me? How are you going to refine me?” How do I lean on the support around me? These questions are more productive and allow you to find a sense of community and connection versus the why question. Why is such an isolated and lonely question, but what and how can lead you toward God, toward others, and toward movement.
Can you give an example of your own life? How has accepting pain been difficult?
My son is on the autism spectrum. Becoming a parent with a child with differences has been such a profound experience and it has refined me in ways that nothing else probably could have.
We must grasp that struggle is the pathway to peace. The current struggle that you're dealing with, even as painful as it is, can help you come to peace and come to terms with other points in your life. It can help you come to terms with what you're currently going through. Help prepare you for the future. I tend to have to learn the same kind of lessons over and over and it seems to be a struggle and create struggles in my life that I wouldn't necessarily want otherwise. When I go through these struggles and grasp the struggle, I've found peace on the other side of it, and can then continue my life in peace with a similar struggle.
For example, when I feel disrespected, it triggers me. I know where this comes from; as a child, I didn’t have a voice. I wasn't respected for my opinion, for what I had to say. And there were times when I was even made fun of, and it was a tumultuous situation. In current relationships, there have been times when I've felt disrespected, and I can get reactionary.
I sat with it this past week and did some journaling and prayed a lot about it. And even though I'm aware of where that wound comes from and where it originates, I still feel like I haven't completely made peace with that wound or with that need. I did get a sense of gratitude that I have the opportunity to still face the struggle. I know if I'm still facing the struggle, then I have hope that there's peace coming. It's gratitude that I have the ability to heal from this, and I know that there will be healing from it at some point. So even if I am faced with someone who's being disrespectful, I can have a perspective of it rearing its ugly head again. I’m going to sit with it, pray with it, pray in it, and dig out some more of the wounds and grieve and work through it.
So much of it is changing our perspective. It’s helpful in understanding the struggle is a pathway to peace. I read in a book a while ago that when you're facing something difficult to try to observe yourself in that situation rather than be in your own body. If you can put yourself in kind of an observer's point of view, you can see the broader picture. You can see whether it's with a person, whether it's with a situation, for instance, we just had a recent shooting here in Nashville and it doesn't make any sense. It’s one of the things that prompted some of this discussion about finding peace in the struggle that we deal with every day.
If we can pull ourselves up out of it, it doesn't mean you have to make everything make sense and it doesn't mean it makes everything go away, but if you can pull yourself out of being affected by it, sometimes it gives you a better view of understanding yourself. You can see the terrible tragedy that happened, and you can observe yourself experiencing that. It gives me a break to not be as attached to some of my feelings at the moment. Like what that brings up in me, the feeling of being out of control, that the world's going down, fear. It’s a lot of fear and sadness.
It's easier for me to see that there is a pathway to peace if I can take myself out of being immediately affected.
Lamentations 3:21 really helps me because the struggle is real. You hear it in the first part of the chapter, and then midway through it says, “Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope.” It’s sort of the observer's point of view instead of being really deep in the struggle of the pain you're experiencing, you move back and say, but this I call to mind. And for me, that feels like that observer. Where and therefore, I have hope. And then the writer goes on to talk about how because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed, His compassion never fails. He is faithful and He is with us. Not denying the struggle, but because of the struggle, recognizing I need to lean on something bigger than myself.
We've talked about accepting that life is painful, and it hurts and wanting to run from it is natural. We've also talked about the pathway to peace is actually struggle. In other words, the promise of struggle, of going through hard things is hope. Let's move into the last point, which is the practical side of this.
How do we find peace in the struggle?
This is rock solid foundation for me. 1000% remembering and reminding myself that because of God, I have hope. I don't have hope in myself. I don't have hope in my circumstances. I can't. Those things fail me all the time. But I do have hope in God. And the writer of Lamentations reminds us of that too. And how the Lord is good to those who hope in Him. It sounds like christianese because it's foundational. It's what I believe. It's who I go back to. I don't know how I would get through struggle without hope in God, without knowing that He is good, that He does long to help, and that He doesn't willingly afflict anyone with grief. I love Lamentations 3:33. “It says, “For He does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone.” When I'm struggling, I need the reminder, that God isn't bringing this on me willingly. He must have a purpose and a plan. But His heart isn't to cause grief.
Reflecting on a wound, I was journaling about my need for God and the gratitude that He's there. I'm so grateful to have a God who's there and will be my comfort and also that the struggle pushes me towards Him if I allow it. There are all kinds of ways that I can kind of avoid going to God with my struggle or my need for comfort. How precious it is that we have a God who wants us to come to Him and He wants to be the comfort, He wants to be the guide, He wants to be all of the things that He promises because as Jesus said, in this life, there will be struggle. But he has overcome the world and so we can have peace in that.
What's interesting about that verse is it's not like there will be hardship but I have overcome the world. He doesn't say, you will overcome the world. Our hope isn't in ourselves. That's an important distinction. We try to comfort ourselves and we try to find or fabricate peace in the midst of some of the hardest times. In my solo days, I felt heartbroken, alone and devastated. It went beyond sadness and grief. There were times I honestly felt, God, if I don't wake up tomorrow morning, I'm okay with that. Just please take care of the kids.
That’s when the 23rd Psalm took on a new light for me. I was reading it one day and it says, “He makes me lie down in green pastures” and all these things that He does, but then it switches from the third person to the first person. It says, “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” It doesn't say He is with me. It says, “You are with me, Your rod, Your staff, they comfort me.” I realized that in the struggle, that's where God is closest to us but it's up to us to go to Him. For me what that looked like was meditation or being quiet, carving out time, not filling up my mind intellectually with a bunch of information and pep talk. Being still literally transformed my season.
The night the shooting happened here in Nashville, I had to lead a Solo group and I was struggling that day for sure. We finish the group every week reading Psalm 23. When I got to that part, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for You are with me,” I was crying. I cried all the way through the rest of Psalm 23. How beautiful is that promise? I can hold close to that and I'm so grateful for it, but also the sadness, it was like a situation where the struggle is here and it's real and the sadness and the grief and the fear and all the things that come along with it, but then, there's a promise and a guide.
We've talked about three things to find peace in our struggle. The first is accepting that life is painful. The second is that struggle is actually the pathway to peace. And the third is that God is our comforter, which changes our view of struggle.
Listener Question
How do I handle the disappointment when men at church or neighbors throw out ideas of spending time with my son, but then never follow through? He remembers, hopes, and waits and it breaks my heart.
First, recognize there's no perfect situation and that these people that have offered this kind of thing had good intentions. Then sit with your kids in the feeling of disappointment because it is so disappointing and hurtful when people don't follow through on promises to be helpful and supportive. Especially when you desperately need it.
Maybe you ask again. For example, “Hey, you mentioned that you’d spend some time with my son, and I know you might be really busy, but I still would love your support.” Let disappointment inform the truth that you really need and want something for you and your child. Keep asking, keep seeking that.
Or maybe you move on to someone else who might have more availability and be more able to follow through. But let that disappointment be a guide to help, there's something important missing here. Keep reaching for it and asking God for help in the process too.
We’re talking about finding peace in today's struggle. Earlier in the month we talked about how peace is not the absence of trouble. When everything in our lives is turned upside down and we feel desperate, it's hard to even think how we're going to get through the day. Peace can feel unattainable. So how do we find peace in today's struggle?
We're going to cover three main points. The first thing is why we run from pain. Number two, we're going to talk about how pain and peace go together. And three, we're going to talk about how we can find comfort in our pain. No one wants to feel uncomfortable or experience pain, but we live in a broken world with lots of problems. No one listening to this wants to accept that life is painful. I don't want to either, but why is it important to accept life is painful and that it just hurts?
What's a struggle that you're dealing with right now that you are having trouble coming to terms with?
So, this is a pressing pain point for me that has been today, but also for a while. My two children whom I love dearly are not following the Lord. They have rejected faith for their own reasons. While I still see seeds of the truth that's been planted in them, and that gives me hope, it's a big point of pain that they really don't value the things of God. They're not following Him. They're pretty respectful about my journey, of faith, but they're not following God. It's my biggest pain point.
We know life is painful and that it hurts. How do we accept this?
It’s so difficult. Who wants to accept pain as part of our reality? I want to avoid it. I want to escape it. I want to minimize it. I want it to be quick. I want a solution. We need to accept it. If we don't, we cope in ways that are unhealthy, to avoid it, to distract ourselves. Sometimes substances, sometimes working too much, whatever it might be. None of these things affect the problem. The pain and suffering are still there. It can feel better in some ways to run from pain, but facing it allows us to experience it and then know what we need while we're hurting.
It's important to point out that it's not wrong to want to run from pain. When God created this earth, the Garden of Eden, things were perfect. It's natural for us to want to get back to that state where all is right. We don't want to run from pain, we want to not feel discomfort, but also we shouldn't beat ourselves up that we want to escape it. There’s no shame in not wanting life to be uncomfortable.
Sometimes the pain is so compelling, and you want to know why this is happening to me. Why am I suffering? Why God, why this, why that? These questions don’t get you anywhere. We need to start asking what am I doing here? What are you doing, God? What is the reason for this? And then how do I get through this? How do I keep moving forward? Why, Lord, why? Instead of, “Lord, what are you doing through this? What are you trying to teach me? How are you going to refine me?” How do I lean on the support around me? These questions are more productive and allow you to find a sense of community and connection versus the why question. Why is such an isolated and lonely question, but what and how can lead you toward God, toward others, and toward movement.
Can you give an example of your own life? How has accepting pain been difficult?
My son is on the autism spectrum. Becoming a parent with a child with differences has been such a profound experience and it has refined me in ways that nothing else probably could have.
We must grasp that struggle is the pathway to peace. The current struggle that you're dealing with, even as painful as it is, can help you come to peace and come to terms with other points in your life. It can help you come to terms with what you're currently going through. Help prepare you for the future. I tend to have to learn the same kind of lessons over and over and it seems to be a struggle and create struggles in my life that I wouldn't necessarily want otherwise. When I go through these struggles and grasp the struggle, I've found peace on the other side of it, and can then continue my life in peace with a similar struggle.
For example, when I feel disrespected, it triggers me. I know where this comes from; as a child, I didn’t have a voice. I wasn't respected for my opinion, for what I had to say. And there were times when I was even made fun of, and it was a tumultuous situation. In current relationships, there have been times when I've felt disrespected, and I can get reactionary.
I sat with it this past week and did some journaling and prayed a lot about it. And even though I'm aware of where that wound comes from and where it originates, I still feel like I haven't completely made peace with that wound or with that need. I did get a sense of gratitude that I have the opportunity to still face the struggle. I know if I'm still facing the struggle, then I have hope that there's peace coming. It's gratitude that I have the ability to heal from this, and I know that there will be healing from it at some point. So even if I am faced with someone who's being disrespectful, I can have a perspective of it rearing its ugly head again. I’m going to sit with it, pray with it, pray in it, and dig out some more of the wounds and grieve and work through it.
So much of it is changing our perspective. It’s helpful in understanding the struggle is a pathway to peace. I read in a book a while ago that when you're facing something difficult to try to observe yourself in that situation rather than be in your own body. If you can put yourself in kind of an observer's point of view, you can see the broader picture. You can see whether it's with a person, whether it's with a situation, for instance, we just had a recent shooting here in Nashville and it doesn't make any sense. It’s one of the things that prompted some of this discussion about finding peace in the struggle that we deal with every day.
If we can pull ourselves up out of it, it doesn't mean you have to make everything make sense and it doesn't mean it makes everything go away, but if you can pull yourself out of being affected by it, sometimes it gives you a better view of understanding yourself. You can see the terrible tragedy that happened, and you can observe yourself experiencing that. It gives me a break to not be as attached to some of my feelings at the moment. Like what that brings up in me, the feeling of being out of control, that the world's going down, fear. It’s a lot of fear and sadness.
It's easier for me to see that there is a pathway to peace if I can take myself out of being immediately affected.
Lamentations 3:21 really helps me because the struggle is real. You hear it in the first part of the chapter, and then midway through it says, “Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope.” It’s sort of the observer's point of view instead of being really deep in the struggle of the pain you're experiencing, you move back and say, but this I call to mind. And for me, that feels like that observer. Where and therefore, I have hope. And then the writer goes on to talk about how because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed, His compassion never fails. He is faithful and He is with us. Not denying the struggle, but because of the struggle, recognizing I need to lean on something bigger than myself.
We've talked about accepting that life is painful, and it hurts and wanting to run from it is natural. We've also talked about the pathway to peace is actually struggle. In other words, the promise of struggle, of going through hard things is hope. Let's move into the last point, which is the practical side of this.
How do we find peace in the struggle?
This is rock solid foundation for me. 1000% remembering and reminding myself that because of God, I have hope. I don't have hope in myself. I don't have hope in my circumstances. I can't. Those things fail me all the time. But I do have hope in God. And the writer of Lamentations reminds us of that too. And how the Lord is good to those who hope in Him. It sounds like christianese because it's foundational. It's what I believe. It's who I go back to. I don't know how I would get through struggle without hope in God, without knowing that He is good, that He does long to help, and that He doesn't willingly afflict anyone with grief. I love Lamentations 3:33. “It says, “For He does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone.” When I'm struggling, I need the reminder, that God isn't bringing this on me willingly. He must have a purpose and a plan. But His heart isn't to cause grief.
Reflecting on a wound, I was journaling about my need for God and the gratitude that He's there. I'm so grateful to have a God who's there and will be my comfort and also that the struggle pushes me towards Him if I allow it. There are all kinds of ways that I can kind of avoid going to God with my struggle or my need for comfort. How precious it is that we have a God who wants us to come to Him and He wants to be the comfort, He wants to be the guide, He wants to be all of the things that He promises because as Jesus said, in this life, there will be struggle. But he has overcome the world and so we can have peace in that.
What's interesting about that verse is it's not like there will be hardship but I have overcome the world. He doesn't say, you will overcome the world. Our hope isn't in ourselves. That's an important distinction. We try to comfort ourselves and we try to find or fabricate peace in the midst of some of the hardest times. In my solo days, I felt heartbroken, alone and devastated. It went beyond sadness and grief. There were times I honestly felt, God, if I don't wake up tomorrow morning, I'm okay with that. Just please take care of the kids.
That’s when the 23rd Psalm took on a new light for me. I was reading it one day and it says, “He makes me lie down in green pastures” and all these things that He does, but then it switches from the third person to the first person. It says, “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” It doesn't say He is with me. It says, “You are with me, Your rod, Your staff, they comfort me.” I realized that in the struggle, that's where God is closest to us but it's up to us to go to Him. For me what that looked like was meditation or being quiet, carving out time, not filling up my mind intellectually with a bunch of information and pep talk. Being still literally transformed my season.
The night the shooting happened here in Nashville, I had to lead a Solo group and I was struggling that day for sure. We finish the group every week reading Psalm 23. When I got to that part, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for You are with me,” I was crying. I cried all the way through the rest of Psalm 23. How beautiful is that promise? I can hold close to that and I'm so grateful for it, but also the sadness, it was like a situation where the struggle is here and it's real and the sadness and the grief and the fear and all the things that come along with it, but then, there's a promise and a guide.
We've talked about three things to find peace in our struggle. The first is accepting that life is painful. The second is that struggle is actually the pathway to peace. And the third is that God is our comforter, which changes our view of struggle.
Listener Question
How do I handle the disappointment when men at church or neighbors throw out ideas of spending time with my son, but then never follow through? He remembers, hopes, and waits and it breaks my heart.
First, recognize there's no perfect situation and that these people that have offered this kind of thing had good intentions. Then sit with your kids in the feeling of disappointment because it is so disappointing and hurtful when people don't follow through on promises to be helpful and supportive. Especially when you desperately need it.
Maybe you ask again. For example, “Hey, you mentioned that you’d spend some time with my son, and I know you might be really busy, but I still would love your support.” Let disappointment inform the truth that you really need and want something for you and your child. Keep asking, keep seeking that.
Or maybe you move on to someone else who might have more availability and be more able to follow through. But let that disappointment be a guide to help, there's something important missing here. Keep reaching for it and asking God for help in the process too.
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