This post was written by Heather Yost, precious friend and coffee buddy. Head over to the contributor’s page to learn more about her.

Military life has provided many opportunities for spiritual growth and insight- especially when things get difficult and sometimes seem downright impossible to bear.  When my husband deployed to Iraq and the media would broadcast news of attacks, my deepest need in those moments was to experience the peace of God.  

During and after miscarriage, I needed His overwhelming peace to carry me through the deep emotional pain of loss.  You have been there, friend.  You also are well acquainted with circumstances that shake us to the core and cause us to reach out to the only unshakeable One that can provide a balm for the aching heart. 

Have you had those times, however, where that balm, that peace, seemed inaccessible?  I have.  One of the reasons I struggled was because I didn’t understand the two types of peace that we experience as believers.  Thankfully, our Savior, the Prince of Peace, is a faithful teacher and a gentle Shepherd.  (He’s also a promise maker and keeper; we’ll come back to that.)  

The first type of peace we experience the moment we trust Christ as our personal Savior is peace with God as seen in Romans 5:1, “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  When we trusted Christ to be our Savior, we were forgiven and positionally perfect, robed with Christ’s righteousness.  

We simultaneously experienced the second type of peace, the one that we sometimes are not actively experiencing as believers – the overwhelming, heart-keeping peace of God.  As a new Creature, the Holy Spirit convinced us of our forgiven sin-debt which produced the fruit of peace in our hearts and minds.  

Philippians 4:6-7, 9 says, “Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.   And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus . . . Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do:  and the God of peace shall be with you.” 

What a promise from the Author and Finisher of our faith!   He tells us that we can bring our case before Him with a heart of thanksgiving, and then, He tells us what to do with our thoughts so that they aren’t essentially a wrecking ball to all that is true, just, pure, and lovely.  

God used Paul, the one who persecuted Christians, the one who, once saved, endured tremendous trial and persecution, shipwreck, imprisonment, and a chronic malady to write this prescription for experiencing the peace of God to a church he planted.  The two can’t be separated.  

I don’t know what circumstance you’re facing, but I do know that there’s no need to wait until the circumstance changes to experience peace.  Peace comes when you intimately know the one who authored the promise and are convinced that He is one hundred percent capable of keeping it.