The Mind of Peace

But there is another part of the secret of peace which it is also important for us to learn. “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee.”* (Isaiah 26:3) There is something for us to do. There is no doubt that God has power to keep us in perfect peace. He is omnipotent, and His strength is a defence and a shelter to all who hide in Him. But even God will never compel us into submission—we must yield ourselves to Him. Even omnipotence will not gather us into its invincible shelter by force—we must be willing in the day of God’s power (Psalm 110:3). All we need to do is to stay our minds upon God. That means to trust Him, to rest in Him, to nestle in His love. We remember where John was found the night of the Lord’s last supper with His disciples—John was leaning on Jesus’ breast. He crept into that holy shelter and reposed upon the infinite love which beat in that bosom. John simply trusted, and was kept in holy peace.

A beautiful story is told of Rudyard Kipling during a serious illness. The nurse was sitting at his bedside on one of the anxious nights when the sick man’s condition was most critical. She was watching him intently and noticed that his lips began to move. She bent over him, thinking he wished to say something to her. She heard him whisper very softly the words of the old familiar prayer of childhood, “Now I lay me down to sleep.” The nurse, realizing that her patient was not needing her services, and that he was praying, said in apology for having intruded upon him, “I beg your pardon, Mr. Kipling; I thought you wanted something.” “I do,” faintly replied the sick man; “I want my heavenly Father. He only can care for me now.” In his great weakness there was nothing that human help could do, and he turned to God, seeking the blessing and the care which none but God can give. That is what we need to do in every time of danger, of trial, of sorrow—when the gentlest human love can do nothing—creep into our heavenly Father’s bosom, saying, “Now I lay me down to sleep.” That is the way to peace. Earth has no shelter in which it can be found, but in God the feeblest may find it.

A passenger on an ocean steamer, exposed for three days to a winter’s cyclone of terrific violence, was standing on the deck in one of the fiercest moments of the storm, and saw a little sea-bird flutter an instant in the face of the gale, and then settle down on a wave and fold its wings in restful quiet. So may the believer in Christ do in the darkest hour of trial. “Let not your heart be troubled,” said the Master; “believe in God, believe also in me.”* (John 14:1)

This is the one great lesson of Christian faith—“Believe.” “Into thine hands I commit my spirit.”* (Psalm 31:5; Luke 23:46) “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee.” Stayed on Thee! These words tell the whole story. They picture a child nestling in the mother’s bosom, letting its whole little weight down upon her. It has no fear, and nothing disturbs it, for the mother’s love is all about it. “Stayed” means reposing. It suggests also the thought of continuousness of trust and abiding. Too much of our trust is broken, intermittent—this hour singing, the next hour in tears, dismayed. If we would have unbroken peace we must have unbroken trust, our minds stayed upon God all the while.