Bruce Wrenn April 2021
During some recent conversations I have had with two friends, I have been asked to explain why I seem to be able to be at peace when experiencing severe trials. My default option is to respond in writing rather than ad lib talking. This allows me to be more precise in my response (e.g., instead of saying “somewhere in Isaiah or Jeremiah it says...”, I can accurately quote the exact verse and in my preferred Bible version). So here is my effort to explain why I feel at peace in the midst of adversity in case others share my two friends’ curiosity.
To me, one large component of peace is trusting in God’s tender loving mercy for us. The better I know God, the more I am aware of just how tender his love is for me; how he sees me as a fragile beloved child who needs special care to avoid being harmed when subjected to the vicissitudes of this life. Isaiah 28:23-29 provides an portrait of God’s loving tenderhearted way of treating his fragile children by using an analogy of a framer carefully harvesting fragile crops. My Life Application Bible says this about these verses: “The farmer uses special tools to plant and harvest tender herbs so he will not destroy them. He takes into account how fragile they are. In the same way God takes all our individual circumstances and weaknesses into account. He deals with each of us sensitively.”
We have several examples in Scripture of God’s sensitivity to our fragile state, whether it is emotional, physical or spiritual sensitivity. Consider God’s tender care of Elijah when he was at a very low, vulnerable point in his life:
19 When Ahab arrived in Jezreel, he told Jezebel about everything that had taken place. He told her how Elijah had executed all the prophets of Baal with a sword, and she became furious.
2 Jezebel sent an urgent message to Elijah.
Jezebel’s Message: May the gods kill me and worse, if I haven’t killed you the way you killed their priests by this time tomorrow. Your end is near, Elijah.
3 Terrified, Elijah quickly ran for his life. He traveled the length of Israel in one day and finally arrived at Beersheba, the southern point of God’s territory, which is in
Judah. When he arrived, he instructed his servant to remain there while he sought solitude.
4 He journeyed into the desert for one day and then decided to rest beneath the limbs of a broom tree. There he prayed that his life would be over quickly and that he would die there beneath the tree.
Elijah: I’m finished, Eternal One. Please end my life here and now, even though I have failed, and I am no better than my ancestors.
5 Elijah then laid himself down under the broom tree and entered into a deep sleep. While he was sleeping, a heavenly messenger came and touched him and gave him instructions.
Messenger: Get up, and eat.
6 Elijah looked and found a breadcake sitting over charcoal near his head. There was also a jar of water. He ate the food and drank the water, and then he lay back down.
7 The Eternal’s messenger visited him again, touched him, and gave him more instructions.
Heavenly Messenger: Get up, and eat. Your journey ahead is great, and you need plenty of nourishment.
8 Elijah got up and ate the food and drank the water. His body felt strong again, and he journeyed for 40 more days and 40 more nights to Horeb, God’s mountain where Moses received the Ten Directives.
9 When he arrived at Horeb, he walked into a cave and rested for the night.
Eternal One (to Elijah): Why are you here, Elijah? What is it that you desire?
Elijah: 10 As you know, all my passion has been devoted to the Eternal One, the God of heavenly armies. The Israelites have abandoned Your covenant with them, they have torn down every single one of Your altars, and they have executed by the sword all those who prophesy in Your name. I am the last remaining prophet, and they now seek to execute me as well.
Eternal One: 11 Leave this cave, and go stand on the mountainside in My presence.
The Eternal passed by him. The mighty wind separated the mountains and crumbled every stone before the Eternal. This was not a divine wind, for the Eternal was not within this wind. After the wind passed through, an earthquake shook the earth. This was not a divine quake, for the Eternal was not within this earthquake. 12-13 After the earthquake was over, there was a fire. This was not a divine fire, for the Eternal was not within this fire. After the fire died out, there was nothing but the sound of a calm breeze. And through this breeze a gentle, quiet voice entered into Elijah’s ears. (1 Kings 19:1-12 The Voice)
Jeremiah (31:2-3) quotes God’s expression of lovingkindness to His children when they have been beset with troubles:
2 This is what the Lord says: “The people who survive the sword will find favor in the wilderness; I will come to give rest to Israel.”
3 The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness. (NIV)
Jeremiah, in his book of Lamentations (3:21-23) over the destruction of Jerusalem in 586BC by the Babylonians, said this through his tears:
21 But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end;
23 they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. (NRSV)
Hosea (11:4), records these words of God speaking to His wayward people:
I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love. To them I was like one who lifts a little child to the cheek, and I bent down to feed them. (NIV)
Micah (7:18) says God “delights to show mercy.” Imagine that: God is happiest when He is being merciful to us! Rebellious, ungrateful, stubborn us!
Listen to how David talks about God’s compassionate nature for us in our fragile state:
13 An earthly father expresses love for his children; it is no different with our heavenly Father; The Eternal shows His love for those who revere Him.
14 For He knows what we are made of; He knows our frame is frail, and He remembers we came from dust. (Psalm 103,The Voice)
Jesus reveals the heart of the Trinity throughout His ministry with acts of tender mercy for those on the margins (e.g., lepers and woman with bleeding condition) as well as the upper strata of society (e.g, the synagogue leader Jarius) and for the disadvantaged (e.g., blind and lame) and strong (e.g., the centurion). But perhaps most shocking to listeners was His parable in Luke 15:11-31 of the father of the prodigal son—stunning in its portrayal and unforgettable in its revelation of the tenderness and vastness of the Father’s love.
Paul, in the twelfth chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians talks about spiritual gifts God gives to us and compares the human body to the church, the body of Christ. Then, in chapter 13, his famous discourse on love, he continues the theme of relating the Divine to humanity by talking about the nature of Divine love. Thus, our love for one another should be like God’s love for us: “patient, kind, protective, trustworthy, persevering and unfailing” (1 Corinthians 13:4- 8). These are not what Paul only wished love could be, they are what he knew love to be as God loved him. Tender, gentle, unbounded, timeless love. Being loved like this leads to gratitude, trust, and reciprocal love for the One who loves you. All this causes you to be able to be at peace because you are convinced of the soon coming reality when Love will rule over everything forever.
So, what does all this have to do with our ability to be at peace when surrounded by troubles, real or imagined? For me, feeling, internalizing and trusting in God’s tender merciful love for fragile me provides a sense of peace unlike anything worldly-based peace could ever do. I have come to the state Isaiah described in chapter 26:3: “You will keep in perfect peace
all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!” (NLT). I believe this is what Paul was talking about in 2 Corinthians 4:18 when he says “So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.” Paul “fixes his thoughts” (his “gaze”) on Jesus instead of the troubles that constantly beset him, and Paul thereby knows a peace that transcends the understanding (Philippians 4:7) of those who don’t acknowledge the love of Jesus, and who can see only the troubles that surround them.
I use a metaphor to help me stay at peace like Paul. It uses the scientific construct of “limen.” Wikipedia defines a limen this way:
“In physiology, psychology, or psychophysics, a limen or a liminal point is a sensory threshold of a physiological or psychological response. It is the boundary of perception. On one side of a limen (or threshold) a stimulus is perceivable, on the other side it is not.”
I find this metaphor to be a particularly useful and practical means of ordering my thoughts and feelings that allow me to keep my thoughts “stayed on Him” and to “trust in Him” to be kept in perfect peace. I do not live in denial of the troubles that surround me: e.g., the fact that I am in the latter stages of an incurable disease, suffer the sometimes-terrible side effects of the drugs dripping into my veins, and acknowledge the extremely vulnerable state of having severe “underlying conditions” during a highly contagious viral pandemic, and the like.
But I think of all these and other troubles as being beneath the limen in my life. In Paul’s terms, they are all, no matter how serious, “light and momentary” problems that can be seen and felt and which demand attention, but I do not allow them to rise above the threshold to rob me of the peace that exists above the limen. That is where peace surrounds me, the foundation of which is the very real experience of being the object of love from a God who knows me better than I know myself (Psalm 139); who has known and loved me with an “everlasting love” and who has drawn me to him with “unfailing kindness”; who “holds me to his cheek” and “bends down to feed me;” whose “steadfast love for me never ceases” and whose “mercies never come to an end”; who “delights” in showering those mercies on me; who “knows my frame is frail” and that I “came from dust” and must be treated with the utmost tenderheartedness and spoken to with a “gentle quiet voice.” All of this “patient, kind, protective, trustworthy, persevering and unfailing” love keeps me at peace even when contending with “subliminal” troubles.
I don’t want to suggest that the problems that exist below the limen do not demand my full attention and don’t require wisdom to find solutions. They do, but I don’t face these problems alone. One of my favorite verses that gives me assurance that God will be with me when confronting these problems is Psalms 73:23-24:
Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory.
Problems below the limen require solutions, questions must get answered, demands must be met, we must persevere through our trials, but all these dilemmas are faced head-on with my hand firmly held by my heavenly Father, and I do not stress over them when I am actively involved in addressing the problem. I put my trust in God alone. Stressing over a problem is not solving a problem.
It should also be clear at this point that peace is not the same as being free from troubles. Note the circumstances when Christ said:
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. John 14:27
Christ spoke these words to His disciples when He was only hours away from crucifixion. Obviously, it requires Divine peace rather than worldly peace to get you through extreme adversity, but we can have this peace under all circumstances.
If I focus only on the problem I face, I rob myself of the peace that covers me when my hand is held by His. Christ, in the longest section of His Sermon on the Mount, warns us not to worry (Matthew 6:25-34). He begins with these words: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life” because he knows that is our human nature. He then goes into great depth about how trusting in God’s provisions for us should keep us from worrying which prevents us from having the peace that He wants us to have. I can never recall a single instance when worrying about a problem resulted in a desirable outcome, but it sure did disturb my peace.
But these verses in Psalm 73 not only provide assurance that we will receive guidance in wisely solving the problems or overcoming the troubles that surround us, but also remind us that we should never lose sight of the ultimate consequence of our choosing to walk with God holding us by our right hand throughout life—where He is, there we will be also (“afterward you will take me into glory”). No wonder Paul makes this comparison about the things below the limen and those above: “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (2 Corinthians 4 :17). Our trials on this earth keep us yearning for our heavenly home where there is no more pain, suffering, grief or tears, and no memories of the troubles that produced them. That assurance gives us a very real sense of peace above the limen, simultaneously with severe troubles below.
Now I would be less than honest if I didn’t admit that sometimes worldly troubles pierce the threshold and “disturb the peace” that lies above. And I confess that I also do this to myself when I let some desire for a worldly “good” rise to a level of feverish desire that also disturbs my contentedness with all the gifts that God has so generously and graciously provided. When I find myself doing these things, I re-center myself by recounting the verses quoted here describing God’s tender mercies, claim God’s promises he made to stay with us as He guides us through the troubles, and refocus my gaze to see our true home where we are all destined to go.
So, all this is a work in progress—the path of sanctification, the work of a lifetime. All I know is that for me peace is more than just a reasonable, rational conclusion from consideration of all the evidence that I have quoted here. It is, in fact, a recognition of what happens when we ask for God to abide in us, and our lives are filled with the Holy Spirit, making it possible for us to bear the fruit of that Spirit every day of our lives, no matter how high the heat or severe the drought (Jeremiah 17:7-8) we face in our earthly lives. Galatians 5 tells us that the first three fruits of the Spirit that will show up in our lives from God abiding in us are “love, joy and peace,” and, by God’s infinite grace, my life has become a living testimony to the truthfulness of that promise.
In summary, here is how I have personally arrived at having an abiding peace as I face adversity. I believe that all people of faith daily have two simultaneous realities that we occupy. One is the adversity that exists below the limen. For me, this is dominated, but not limited to, the troubles detailed in a previous essay, “An Eyewitness to God’s Goodness”. Your troubles may well be much worse. In addition, adversity comes when we share the burdens of family, friends and strangers for whom we pray and empathize with as they go through their own troubles (Galatians 6:2). Christ told us we would face these troubles on earth, but He told us that we should not be discouraged or feel defeated by these troubles because He has overcome the world (John 16:33), and His victory is ours when He daily abides in us (John 14:26-27). He also reminds us that the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world as we face our troubles (1 John 4:4), and promises that because he surrounds us with His protection (Psalm 91), He allows through only that part of the trial that, with His Providence, we will be able to overcome, and which matures our faith (1 Corinthians 10:13; James 1:2-4). So, the reality of adversity beneath the limen, that we face ourselves and share with our loved ones, is not faced alone. Jesus is constantly with us (Psalm 73:23), and by our daily asking for and receiving the Holy Spirit abiding in us we can be more than conquerors of these troubles, and no amount of adversity can separate us from God’s love (Romans 8:37-38). Remember, God is able to do far more for us than we are capable of conceiving (Ephesians 3:20).
But above the limen is a contemporaneous reality that far outweighs that which is beneath the limen. Our trials are preparing us for a future eternity in heaven which is far more wonderful than we are capable of imagining (2 Corinthians 2:9-10), and where there is no more strife, pain, stress, tears, or death (Revelation 21:4). The presence of the Holy Spirit abiding in us is the guarantee that this reality will be ours (2 Corinthians 5:5). Moreover, the reality above the limen that simultaneously exists with the reality of the troubles below, consists of God’s constant tender love and mercies for us in our most fragile state. This reality above the limen is for all who claim it (2 Peter 3:9). So, in exchange for us casting our anxieties on him (1 Peter 5:7), all of us can daily have Christ’s peace (John 14:7), a peace that transcends understanding. We now eagerly await eternity above the limen where we have been fixing our gaze as we face our “light and momentary” troubles with our hand in His, here below.
Now you see why I count myself, along with Paul, as an unalloyed, incontrovertible “realistic optimist” living at peace.
“If you do this, you will experience God’s peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will keep your thoughts and your hearts quiet and at rest as you trust in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:7 (TLB)
Marah and Elim
by Horatius Bonar
Today 'tis Elim with its palms and wells, And happy shade for desert weariness; 'Twas Marah yesterday, all rock and sand, Unshaded solitude and dreariness.
Yet the same desert holds them both, the same Hot breezes wander o'er the lonely ground;
The same low stretch of valley shelters both, And the same mountains compass them around.
So it is here with us on earth, and so
I do remember it has ever been;
The bitter and the sweet, the grief and joy, Lie near together, but a day between.
Sometimes God turns our bitter into sweet, Sometimes He gives us pleasant watersprings; Sometimes He shades us with His pillar cloud, And sometimes to a blessed palm shade brings.
What matters it? The time will not be long; Marah and Elim will alike be passed;
Our desert wells and palms will soon be done, We reach the “City of our God” at last.
O happy land! beyond these lonely hills, Where gush in joy the everlasting springs; O holy Paradise! above these heavens, Where we shall end our desert wanderings.
