You Can Feel Distressed and Still Have Peace

YAMCouragement

You can feel distressed and still have peace.

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Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness:

thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress;

have mercy upon me, and hear my prayer.

PSALM 4:1 · KJV

Distress Peace

David says both, in the same Psalm.

Thou hast put gladness in my heart,

more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased.

I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep:

for thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety.

PSALM 4:7-8 · KJV

A deeper dimension in our understanding of peace is that peace and distress can coexist.

Sometimes in the environments we are in, we are led to believe that feeling is bad or wrong. It is almost as if people want you to feel like you are on the mountaintop when you are clearly in the valley.

There is nothing wrong with the valley, by the way.

The Bible does not teach us to disregard the reality of what we feel about our circumstances. Paul said:

We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;

Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;

Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.

2 CORINTHIANS 4:8-10 · KJV

HELLO!

If some of us got up in church and said, "I am troubled, perplexed, persecuted and cast down," people might call us negative.

But Paul had mastered something many of us fail to do: he always got divine perspective.

He did not deny the trouble. He put the trouble in its proper place.

Troubled, but not distressed.

Perplexed, but not in despair.

Persecuted, but not forsaken.

Cast down, but not destroyed.

And where does he end?

...that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.

2 CORINTHIANS 4:10 · KJV

The circumstance was real, but it was not the whole story.

Jesus Himself:

...for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame...

HEBREWS 12:2 · KJV

The shame was real. The suffering was real. Jesus did not pretend otherwise.

But the joy that was set before Him gave Him the strength and peace to endure the cross.

You can feel distressed and still have peace.

David was distressed in verse 1 and laying down in peace by verse 8. His distress did not make his confidence in God illegitimate.

Peace does not mean you have to pretend that something does not hurt. It does not mean you cannot be disappointed, perplexed, tired or troubled.

Don't let the reality of your situation overshadow the reality of the God who holds you near and dear.

Your circumstances may be real, but God is also real. Your distress may be real, but His peace is also real. And what you do not understand about your present circumstances does not change what you know about your God.

So even in distress, say like David:

I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety.

PSALM 4:8 · KJV

“Even here, I can have peace.”