I think by now I have made the point that we are all searching for peace. The lack of peace in our lives can cause us to feel out of control, and we can find ourselves searching for peace even when we do not realize that is what we are searching for. When we do not have peace in our lives, every problem we encounter seems so much bigger than it really is. When a sense of peace has eluded us, we struggle to make decisions, we become irritated with people, and we generally feel pretty miserable. When we have peace in our lives the way that God wants us to experience peace, we will not be unreasonably troubled or irritated by the minor frustrations that are part of all of our lives.

We all know that life is not perfect and that we all will encounter struggles and difficult times. Some of those struggles are small and some are big; however, if we have the peace in our lives that God can provide, we will face the struggle no matter the size in a new way with the knowledge that God has everything under control and that He can work out every problem we encounter.

When we have God’s peace in our lives, we will not only realize that life is not perfect, but we will realize that the people in our lives or the people we encounter are not perfect either. Many of us not only expect perfection from ourselves, but we expect it from the people we love and even the people we pass on the street. When we do not have peace in our lives, this expectation of perfection is intensified, and we find ourselves becoming irritated and even angry with the people that we encounter.

We should all work harder at considering the intentions behind other people’s behaviors. When we have the peace that God intends for us to have, we will realize that most people we encounter mean us no harm nor do they mean to irritate us. We should all learn to be more patient with people and not jump to conclusions and automatically think that they are out to get us or that they are trying to do us harm.

We should especially be patient with those in our daily lives. These people tend to be the ones we lose our patience with the most. Ironically, these are the people that we depend on the most to make our lives meaningful. I guess the old saying that we hurt the ones we love the most is true. We lash out at the people in our lives, especially the ones closest to us, because we think they can take it. We feel free to get angry with them and become irritated by the little things they do, because we feel confident that they will continue to love us no matter how we behave. We actually should be more patient with these people because of their love for us. We should try our best not to become irritated and angry with these people as often as we do, and we should realize that our irritation has more to do with our feelings of lack of peace than it does with what they are doing to cause us to be irritated.

When we are living our lives following God and letting Him lead us, we should aspire to find peace in our daily lives as we realize that He is always beside us. If we really think about it that way and know that God is always with us, it will cause us to check ourselves more when we act or react to a situation, a problem, or another person. When we stop and realize that God is truly right beside us during every single part of our lives, it should cause us to be more careful when we are interacting with the people in our lives. God truly is a witness to our every interaction that we have.

If you are struggling with finding peace, and you see that it is causing you to become unreasonably irritated with the people in your life or the people you encounter, it is time to check yourself and realize that it is your lack of peace that is causing you to lash out. The solution is to have more peace in your life. To do this, ask God to renew the peace in your life. When you do, the little things in life will not unreasonably trouble you. You are not alone in this struggle. We all struggle with this issue from time to time.

The thing we all need to remember is that God wants us to have peace. He wants us to get along with others, and He wants us to remember that we are not perfect and neither are the people we love or the people we come into contact with. God wants us all to be slow to anger and quick to forgive. God wants us to consider the other person’s feelings and to work hard at realizing that most of the people in our lives are not trying to harm us or to irritate us. God can help all of us in this area, and He can do it by providing us with the peace and the understanding that He has everything under control and that He will work all of our problems out for us.

So, let’s all work harder at realizing that the people in our lives are not perfect. Let’s be more patient with them and realize that they do not mean to irritate us. Let’s realize that it is our lack of peace that is causing most of us to become unreasonably upset, and let’s try to show everyone the patience that God shows to us. Patience leads to peace and PEACE MATTERS.

~Dan~