A friend, who founded and runs a very successful business, posted on Face Book about how important it is for her to remain calm and level headed when making important decisions. I commented with a quote from Kipling’s poem. “If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs and blaming you…” My parents described it as remaining “calm, cool and collected”. That is a sign of maturity, but it isn’t easy to do. There are at least four things that can make it difficult to remain calm.
The first is uncertainty. We don’t understand what just happened in our life and we ask, “Why!” Whether it is a life changing event or simply something that defies reasonable explanation, we can become distracted and even distraught for days on end. Today my wallet was not in my pocket where I keep it. It has fallen out in my chair before when I put my feet up, but this time it was not in the chair. I had my caregiver look under my chair and it wasn’t there either. Then he noticed it on the floor about four feet on the other side of my chair from the side I had it in my pocket and nowhere near where I walk. In the past, I would have tried to figure out how it could possibly have gotten there; but now I just thank God it was found and I’ll let Him explain it to me when my faith becomes sight.
The second is anger. The actions of others can easily trigger anger when they maliciously attack us, carelessly cut us off in traffic or when we witness someone else being abused by them. Anger is a strong emotion that can eat away at us and destroy our peace of mind. Our human reaction is to get ready to go to battle. Now, when that happens to me, I repeat to myself Exodus 14:14, “The Lord himself will fight for you. Just stay calm.” Letting off steam doesn’t ease the anger; it just sprays fuel on the fire. Now I ignore them or better yet express love for them instead of anger. It is not only the proper Christian response; it restores my peace of mind and it drives my antagonists crazy.
The last two enemies of our peace of mind are fear and worry. One of my favorite pastors recently stated that what we fear or worry about shows us where our faith is weakest. That statement rings so true in my life. My experience has been that my worries are just fears of things that haven’t even happened yet. My faith in God through Jesus Christ and the love He has given me in return drives out all fear and worry. John tells us, “Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment and this shows that we have not experienced his perfect love.” (1 John 4:18)
I pray that each of you reading this have experienced God’s perfect love that drives out your uncertainty, anger, fear and worry; giving you a calmness that only comes from God.