Does God’s Will Always Come With Peace?

Many of us have been told to wait for peace before we proceed with a decision. Some have heard this among their friends, in the church spaces, alongside other places. But for some weeks now, I’ve been sitting with this topic of peace.

I have pushed this particular blog for a while now, wondering if this should go out there.. but like the blog about the echoes of God's words, this topic keeps resounding in my heart to dive deep into it rather than run away from it.

The topic of peace, or the concept of peace is not a foreign topic to many of us as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. We have heard it so many times in our spaces that it has become so normal to wait for peace, expect peace, feel peace before we make any move.

I struggled to write this blog because I didn’t want to come across as telling people not to have the peace of God dwelling richly in their hearts. Because that’s truly not the direction this blog desires to take you. The direction of this blog is to rather help us see scripturally how we have exalted peace more than the words that the Lord has left us with.

We want to feel peace for every decision we step into, before we can attest that God is in that decision. Peace has become a litmus test to confirming God's words, and knowing if truly He has spoken. Peace, if I can say, has become an idol rather than a byproduct of trust or faith in God.

The popular scripture which we use often is Philippians 4:7. When Paul penned the words "and the peace of God... will guard your hearts," he was writing from a prison cell to a church facing severe Roman persecution. We often misread this passage as a guide on how to avoid discomfort, but biblical peace was never meant to be a prerequisite that exempts us from trouble or discomfort. It is the aftermath of enduring it.

We have exalted the feeling of peace over God's word and made it a form of control over our lives' decisions and paths. Many of us, if we are true to ourselves, use peace to avoid the discomfort and sacrifice that most times come as a result of following God's word or calling for our lives. But the biblical peace of God never promised a fairytale peace. Let’s look at two scriptures that can help us understand the kind of peace God wants from us.

In Mark 4:35-41, we read of one of the popular stories in the Bible. This story starts with Christ telling them, “let us cross over to the other side.” They crossed to this other side with a boat. But before I even dive into the main part of the story, what we see first here is obedience before the storm came. The disciples obeyed by crossing over to the other side without knowing that even with them being with Christ, a storm was about to change the course of their journey to the other side.

They obeyed yet the storm still came. Then in Mark 4:37,

“and a great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat….but Christ was in the stern, asleep… and they awoke him and said to Him, “Teacher do you not care that we are perishing?”

Many of us like the disciples get into the storms of life, the waves beat us to the point we are wondering “does God even care?” We wonder how we can go through hurdles, troubles, fear, worries yet Christ is present. It sounds contradictory because we expect the opposite.

There’s this popular saying, “peace is not the absence of the storm, but the presence of peace within the storm,” but may I say that in this scripture, there was no peace present. All that was present was fear and worry that Christ asked them,

“how is it that you have no faith.”- Mark 4:40

As I pondered on this scripture, I wondered how the disciples got so fearful even with them knowing that Christ was in the boat with them. I would have thought some of the disciples being well-experienced fishermen would have made them calm. I would have thought with all the signs and miracles, and words Christ had taught them, they would have been very confident and calm in the storm. But I realized many of us are like them too. God can lead you into a decision that will still be full of storms, and leave you scared, wondering if God is in that decision with you.

Based on the ideas of peace, one can diagnose this situation the disciples were in, saying since they felt no peace in the boat, then it means Christ was not in it with them. But we see the opposite. Every ounce of peace left them even when Christ was in the boat with them.

The second scripture I want us to quickly look at is Mark 14:32-42. The reason for this scripture is to make us see that peace is truly not a litmus test to being in the will of God. The scripture says Christ was “deeply distressed and troubled” and his soul was “overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.”

There’s this cookie-cutter Christianity we have fed on for so many years. Christ our Lord went through all these emotions and peace was not in any of it. He was in the perfect will of God for His life. He was doing the very reason he came to the world. He was in total obedience to the plan and will of God. Yet he felt nothing but sorrow and distress. Christ did not follow through with dying for the sins of the world because of an inner feeling of peace. He followed through entirely out of obedience, anchoring His steps in the word that the Father had already spoken to Him.

We have confused peace with comfort. But obedience to Christ, obedience to God's will and plans for our lives will not always feel comfortable. Neither will it always feel peaceful. You can be in God’s perfect will for your life yet fear can overcome you. The solution is faith. In the middle of the storm, Jesus didn't look at their emotional temperature; He addressed their belief, asking them in verse 40, “Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?”

We need to hold onto that faith instead of wondering if we are out of God's will or if we misheard Him when He told us to enter the boat with Him. Do not be anxious about anything, Apostle Paul says. Many of us have been plagued with fear and anxiety for so long that we don’t have an idea how peace feels like anymore. Like the disciples, many of us have allowed fear to overcome us, so much that we lose sight of Christ who is our peace. We check our emotional temperature instead of checking His commands and instructions for our lives. We must come to a point in our Christian lives where even if Christ is sleeping in the boat, we will trust in his presence in the boat rather than wonder if he cares. Because I tell you, He cares and never stopped caring.

Finally, being in the will of God will not always look rosy like we expect. Thinking because this is God's will for my life, then all I should feel is peace. No sorrow, no discomfort. But Christ in Mark 14 shows us something else.

Called to Mirror Christ

When the storms of life rage around us, we often look outward, searching and waiting for peace. But this is where we are called to mirror Christ. In the middle of that furious tempest, Jesus wasn’t panicking, nor was He waiting for an external peace to arrive. He was peace itself, peace personified. He could sleep soundly on a boat taking on water because He knew exactly who He was, where He came from, and who held Him. We mirror Him not by demanding smooth sailing, but by basking in our God-given identity.

True biblical peace is a fruit of the Spirit, a supernatural reality cultivated from the inside out as we daily behold Him. Jesus mirrored the Father because He spent every single day beholding the Father. What we gaze at, we become. When we fix our gaze on Christ rather than the height of the waves, we carry that same unshakeable, internal quiet into every storm we face.

Then at Gethsemane, let’s mirror Him too. In that garden of agonizing decision, Christ showed us that being in God's perfect will does not mean a total absence of sorrow or discomfort. He didn't wait for a warm, comfortable emotion to validate the path ahead. He was deeply sorrowful and distressed, yet He mirrored the Father through absolute surrender. We mirror Him in our own Gethsemanes when we bring our shaking flesh to God, and choose obedience over our own comfort. It is here that we look at the heavy cup before us and declare, "Not my will, but Yours be done."

Rather than wait for peace as an approval of God's word and presence, why not walk in obedience to what He has said or revealed to us, and have faith that indeed He has said it? And then, perhaps the peace we have been waiting for before obedience will come after obedience and faith in His word. Let us stop waiting for external conditions to feel right, fix our gaze on Him, and mirror Christ.