Perfect Peace

What comes to your mind when you think of peace? What does it look like or feel like for you?

Read Galatians 5:22-23 and Mark 4:35-41. What in the Mark 4 passage do we learn about God and about our human condition? What in this passage surprises, encourages, or challenges your understanding of following Jesus?

What situations or factors or relationships in your life currently cause fear/anxiety for you? Where are you longing for peace? What strategies of pushing away trouble are you most likely to turn to?

Consider the disciples’ first question in Mark 4, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”  How have you wrestled with this question? How have you been convinced Jesus cares for you and your situation?

After Jesus calmed the storm, the disciples ask, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!” This is a question of Jesus’s authority and power. In what ways have you wrestled with Jesus’s authority and power – his right and ability – to do what we need? How have you been convinced of Jesus’s ability to bring about his good?

Jesus asked the disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” When we are afraid or anxious, hurting or confused, we can struggle with God’s strategy. To the degree we believe God is at work for our good (even when we can’t see or understand fully his way), we will have his peace. How have you struggled with or experienced this reality in your life? Consider how the disciples might have reacted different if they were in this same situation after experiencing Jesus’s death and resurrection.

Peace is not a talent we are born with, but the fruit of the Spirit at work in us as we trust in God’s love and power to work out his good in our lives.  Jason Meyer in a commentary on Philippians points out, “The peace the world offers depends upon peaceful circumstances, which must constantly be preserved and guarded from countless dangers. God’s peace is different. Worldly peace must be guarded; God’s peace guards us.” In what ways is this truth a comfort in the midst of the storms in your life?