How to have peace of mind?

James MacDonald, of the radio program Walk in the Word, is in the middle of series on how to have peace of mind.  He defines this in a very different way from what most of us would, but one that gives people of faith the only good starting point for the whole discussion. Peace of mind, he says, is the confident assurance that, whatever I may be going through, God is doing what is best for me.  Peace goes hand-in-hand with trust in God.

He then referred to the famous quotation from St. Paul to the Philippians: Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things (Phil 4:8), and said something I thought was very important to keep in mind: we have to fight for our peace. Thoughts that don't lead to peace come naturally to us. We tend to be anxious about many things, to be drawn into the impure, to focus on the egregious examples around us of injustice and wrongdoing; our thoughts easily drift to things that steal our peace from us. We have to be told what to think about because it takes effort to turn from our natural thoughts toward those that nurture us.

The thing that first caught my attention was the clip at the beginning of the program, which I didn't get to "hang around" long enough to hear again in the context of his talk but which rang true for me as I was hearing it. "We are constantly preaching to ourselves, in our minds," he said.  What are our inward thoughts telling us about our children? our finances? our marriage? our sexual purity? our holiness?  If our own thoughts aren't speaking to us the truth (God's truth) in any of these areas, we are going to struggle to walk in peace.

The thing about this is that it underscores something I learned in my last round of therapy, something that I need to come back to. Most people think that the biggest drivers of their happiness come from outside of them, that they are circumstantial. We tend to think that we'll be happy when something to which we're looking forward comes to pass, or we would be if some situation hadn't happened. But "studies show" that, while there are some things affecting our happiness over which we have no control, most of these are actually internal, and in some cases in our genetic makeup. But the biggest variables affecting our ability to be happy in life (and to be at peace) are in how we respond to the things that happen to us: how we think about them and how we choose to act. There are often underlying beliefs - often inaccurate ones - about ourselves and others that affect these thoughts and actions, and we sometimes need help identifying and changing these assumptions, but we can learn to think about and understand ourselves and others in ways that nurture rather than undermine our happiness and peace.

The only thing missing from this whole discussion (which was probably not missing from MacDonald's talk, which I didn't hear nearly all of) is that this makes it sound as if everything is still up to us. But if we try to trust in God of our own volition we will find ourselves just as incapable of happiness, just as overwhelmed by our inability to do or be as we think we ought, as we tend to be when left completely to our own devices. Rather, it is only in coming into God's presence that we are regularly moved and formed by the Holy Spirit in ways that help us to grow. This time must start with praise and thanksgiving, lest it become just a litany reinforcing how we aren't happy rather than a true touch point allowing God's kingdom to flow more fully into our world.