Unwavering; firm in purpose, resolution, faith, attachment
We either believe what we believe or we do not. We cannot claim faith only in the good times. We cannot praise God only on the mountaintop. There is no absolute truth in the world but there sure is in the Word of God. If you really think about the relationship to peace, this point starts to crystallize. If you waver in what you believe; how can you have peace? If you are not firm in purpose and resolved in what you believe, how can you be at peace? James speaks to this more directly:
If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does. James 1: 5-8
Double-minded. Unstable. Blown and tossed by the wind. The world will throw many such waves at you. It will throw many shifting winds your way to try and shake your faith and get you to doubt. Once you doubt, there goes your perfect peace. The Gospel of Matthew tells a story of when Jesus walked on water and Peter asks Jesus to bid him to come to Him on the water as well. Jesus does and Peter begins to walk on the water. Perfectly within the will of God and perfectly within His peace, Peter is able to do the impossible. But just as quickly, we can lose that peace if we take our eyes off of Jesus and onto our circumstances:
Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!" - Matthew 14: 29-30
Remember, being afraid, worry and anxiety are what keeps the perfect peace of God from manifesting in our lives. Ultimately, it is a matter of faith. Initially, Peter had the right approach and had faith that because God said to do it, he could do it. Then, when he saw the wind he began to have more faith in his circumstances then in his Savior. True faith understands that our Savior is always above our circumstances. Nothing catches God by surprise. He is in the fine details of our lives. Peter had faith in Jesus, then put his faith in the storm and began to sink. So too can we when the storms of life come against us. We can place more faith in our surrounding circumstances then in what we believe in and know to be true. We too can then begin to doubt. Look at what Jesus says to Peter as He is rescuing him:
Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?" Matthew 14: 31
Why do we doubt? Why do we lose
faith when we see the storms of our situations surrounding us? How can we keep
our mind steadfast on what we know to be true even in the height of the storm?
Isaiah says that we keep our mind steadfast through trusting in the Lord.
Sounds simple enough but so difficult to put into practice when our surrounding
circumstances seem so daunting. We have seen the bad example, where Peter
placed his faith in what he saw rather than what he knew. Now let us look at a
good example in the Apostle Paul. The Book of Acts tells a story about when
Paul is being taken to
