A peace that transcends my own understanding

I’ve been invited to share more on a peace that transcends my understanding, which is a biblical promise that is fully realisable in the general sense.  I say general sense because even though I bear this peace that transcends my understanding, I’m still human and have tough days, like today for instance, when I failed multiple times.

The key about this peace that transcends my understanding is it also transcends my failures.

First, a little something on the concept of a peace that transcends our understanding.  It’s a biblical concept that Paul coined in Philippians 4:6-7, and I think is usually quite misunderstood.  I’ve certainly misunderstood it.  And I’m not saying here that I fully understand it; I believe the things of God are well beyond our full comprehension, but I also believe God grants us a taste—which is more than enough to blow us away.

A peace that transcends my understanding is like this: it is completely beyond being conditional and seems to superintend over all circumstances that I encounter, and it lives as a smile on the heart the vast majority of the time.  It’s a mood of gratitude that has prevailed over me for nearly five months now in a way I’ve never experienced before.

Even though this is quite beyond my understanding, I’m going to attempt to be forensic to get a glimpse as to the character of it—I’ve got five below, and there may be more, but five suffices:

1.              Not worried about gaining anything, which has helped me gain release from desiring in a demanding way.  As a peacemaker, the concept of the “progression of an idol” means that we don’t always control our desires.  The peace that transcends my understanding has my desires more in check so when I feel a demand arise I tend not to be bothered in pursuing it.  I just don’t seem that interested these days in pursuing to gain—and I seem to notice what I am gaining more, so as to not take it as much for granted, which tends toward gratitude.

2.              Not driven by achieving anything but achieving what seems to be in keeping with what I discern to be right.  Biblically speaking, peace is linked with doing what is right, so when we do what’s right, we have peace.  I feel that doing what is right is pretty straight forward, and having arrived here, having this sense of peace for doing what is right, I just want more of that.  This is not saying that I’m doing what’s right all the time, because I don’t.  But what’s changed is my implicit decisions are now more likely to be based on what is right.  The peace that transcends my understanding is a resoluteness that suffers much less indecisiveness.

3.              Less focused on others and what they’re doing and not doing.  I think I used to compare myself to others a bit and sometimes a lot, but pecking-order thinking feels like such an inferior way to spend thought time these days.  I do still sense that many others are better than me, but it doesn’t seem to bother me, and it also seems to bother me less when others choose to go their own way against what would otherwise be advised.  I feel completely free of needing to rescue people from what is potentially their own folly.  And I feel freer of judging people for the consequences of their folly which I find is a great encouragement.

4.             Definitely decided that I can’t control almost everything I want to control.  This is a game changer.  I’ve actually decided to NOT want what I want, to refuse those “goals” I tend to subconsciously covet.  It’s taken me all life to do this.  In saying this, I want you, the reader, to be clear that I still want to control things I can’t control.  It may only seem like a small difference between still wanting to control things I can’t and deciding I can’t, but the difference is truly as vast as the known universe.  Probably best summed up as: I can’t, so I won’t.

5.              I’ve decided sticking around and setting down roots is the shortest route to peace.  Somehow, and I don’t fully understand this, my feet are no longer itchy.  I’m not striving to be elsewhere, and I think that’s a beautiful thing to experience—being and feeling at peace right where I am.

~

What sums up the peace that transcends my understanding is I care less now than ever.  

Not about people I mean.  I care heaps about people and those I can help.  

I just care less about what happens in life.  I don’t feel as bothered about trivialities because that’s actually most of life.

The key is, I think, to always expect for bigger things, so the present things appear far less daunting.  By bigger things I don’t mean better things.  By bigger things I mean bigger challenges, in the same way as yesterday is preparation for today and today is but preparation for tomorrow.

IMAGE: me outside my local church which has been instrumental in helping me feel at peace.

I arrived at peace, but how did I get there, and how do you?

Having arrived in a place of peace—something I’d coveted but could not attain for nearly ten years—I was recently challenged by my pastoral supervisor to write about it.  Here’s my attempt:

Back on February 23 this year I wrote an article titled, “Commitment annuls the curse of indecision,” and in this article I spell out what happened.  For the purposes of brevity, here is one passage:

“Once I resolved that I was staying in my fire and emergency services role, I could suddenly see the purpose in it.  But only once I’d committed.  I began to see that I was there by divine appointment.  It’s what I needed to see.  I also began to see that the pastoral position I’ve been in for a few years now is right where I’m supposed to be.

“I’d grown chronically unsettled and wanting to be elsewhere, preferably back in full-time ministry, but I’d failed to see that I was already in full-time ministry—on mission.  I had my mission, but I couldn’t accept it.

“As I faced the truth, that I’m right where I need to be, everything began to click into place.”

This article naturally talks about reaching an arrival point of peace, but there is far more to be discussed about the process of having arrived there.

The truth is it was an arduous process taking several years, and it involved a lot of pain, a fair amount of bitterness and resentment, and significant moments of triggering that led to much sadness and anger.  Much more in fact that I was willing to admit for a long time.

~

At the centre of it was a dream that relied upon being realised for peace to be attained.

Life gets very hard when your peace and contentment relies upon something external to you being realised.  It seems that my one wish to be involved in the vocation of my first choice wasn’t in the will of God—who I desired so much to serve in that way.

~

Even though I’m a part-time Baptist pastor, I’d struggled to see that I was a true pastor.

Even though I’ve been told by many individuals who know what they’re talking about that I’m a “good pastor” it didn’t seem enough.

It didn’t seem enough that I was a pastor at heart.  It didn’t seem enough that I was being used by God in all sorts of days every week.  It seemed measuring up to humanity’s standard of what a pastor is was most important, and I just couldn’t shake that.

I felt that to be a true pastor you needed to be employed full time as a professional.  Isn’t it funny (not much!) that I’d fallen into this thinking that I was “less than” other pastors who were paid well enough to live for their work?

~

The recent years had their own challenges.  2021 was a year where I frequently gave up in utter physical and spiritual exhaustion.  2020 was a year of frustration, challenge and change, yet growth.  2019 was a stretching year that ended in a two-week bout of acute burnout.  2018 was a year where nothing much seemed to happen even though I sowed a lot by faith.  2017 was a recovery year from 2016 and was the beginning of the end for me in the hope of getting substantial church work.  2016—the worst year of my life after acute rejection.  2015, a year of challenge and confusion.  2014 was a paradoxical year of grief in losing Nathanael, yet a strength from God I’d never experienced before.  I won’t count backwards further than that.

Then there was that pivotal December 2021... where I had no idea things would suddenly change.

Almost like it’s the turning point for divine action, having made a decision, the next few months I experienced such a resounding peace that is quite incomparable to what I’ve felt before.  A peace of acceptance and a stillness of soul of being quietly grateful for everything.

~

What I’ve learned is there’s no point coveting that which you cannot control.

Being that it took me years to discover this, if I were you, I wouldn’t fret.  Being patient with ourselves is appropriate because God is even more patient than any of us can comprehend.

What happened to me for that transition to peace, happened apart from me, I can’t take any credit.  But God knew my will was to be free of the desire to control my destiny.  It was like I was sick and tired of being sick and tired in that way.

I know that I may not be able to always retain this sense of peace, so what I’m locking in now is that it can be attained if we’re willing to hold onto the hope of it.

IMAGE: Learning to embrace another career.  Driving the “Kwinana 3.4” back to Perth from Geraldton in January 2022.

Repentance, that painful, miraculous process of heart change

The most inspirational recovery accounts are not held by those who seemingly recovered overnight, but by those who recovered as a slow burn over the many months, years, even decades.

This may not seem much an encouragement to those who are in the ‘early going’ or for those who are only entering what seems the hell of truth.

The fact is, you’re not on a road to nowhere.
You’re on a road to somewhere called YOU—the real you.

Even though recovery seems like it’s a road to nowhere, it’s by faith that we realise that the hope we hope for is drawing us through all the way to a destination that has the paradoxical concept of journey about it.

If there’s anything that recovery teaches us, it’s that the whole of life is a journey, and we never reach the destination, and that is okay.

The key issue about repentance is that it is not an overnight process where we try to convince someone we’re serious about change.

Truly we cannot prove anything to anyone, least of all ourselves, through a promise to change.  The only way to prove anything to anyone, most of all ourselves, is through the long slow and at times bitter grind of working it out in observable behaviour.  That’s true repentance; as Langberg contends, not through words, tears, emotions.

Now, our heart will never choose for this, but it is the biggest blessing when the forces for change force us to continue with the change that’s necessary.

Nobody truly chooses the hard, excruciating path—God always leads us there, with our intrinsic reluctance in tow.

Again, it is the biggest blessing when the forces for change force us to continue with the change that’s necessary.  Those forces for change convince us there’s only one way, and however painful, we can know it as “the good way” because we’re honouring truth.

What I mean by this is, when nobody rescues us, it feels especially hard, but when nobody rescues us, we keep trudging the way of our recovery, because in not being rescued there’s only one way to continued hope, and that is to keep stepping in faith, even if it’s the most painful thing.

Those forces for change are the very things that keep us going on our recovery journey, even as they keep sufficient pressure on us to maintain our bearing on that straight way.  However arduous it is.  See how, in not being rescued, in not being removed from the pain, our recovery is assured, more and more day by day.

We need these forces to keep us going on a different track to where we’ve been before.

It’s in this long journey along the long road of recovery that we BEGIN to live a life that resembles heart change—and truly this new life of recovery is the new life that will continue.

It needs to continue, ad infinitum.

We never reach the destination, for the destination is heart change, and the destination is lived out along the journey, but it is a perilous destination, because we can backslide out of that heart change without continued attention to our spirituality of being truthful with ourselves.

When we expect repentance to be exemplified through words and tears and emotions, we somehow know that it cannot and will not stick.  This is again why I say that the forces for change that force us to continue on the narrow and painful way are a huge blessing in disguise.

The narrow and painful way heralds 
the eternal way that keeps us honest and on track.
It’s way of the disciple of Christ.

We can have our fake repentance if we want.  Whenever people accept the fauxnerability of a sincerity of words, tears, and emotions, they shortcut the process, and without even knowing it, they agree to let the person off the hook.

The words and tears and emotions all seem sincere, but repentance is a long slow and at times bitter grind without end, because repentance is a new way and that new way is lived out each and every henceforth day.

To those who are in a genuine recovery process, know that YOU are a rarity.  God sees you.  Hardly anybody commits themselves to the long slow and at times bitter grind to the better and possibly best version of ourselves.

Not many will get this, and not many will commit.

But if you are genuinely sincere, you will commit for the long haul, and that heart change stepped out day after day after day for many months, extending into the years, and into the decades, is the way life has now come to be.  And you never return to that old life.  The new has come—true salvation.

Avoiding unconscious projection and transference

One of the commonest mistakes of the human life is the error of living through another person’s eyes.  What I mean is not so much seeking another’s approval—which is not good—but of viewing others as making errors that we ourselves are making and attributing our errors to them.

This is where the two terms of ‘projection’ and ‘transference’ come in.  When a person is unconscious of the pain that thwarts their life, they too easily cast what they don’t like and don’t accept about themselves onto those who have absolutely nothing to do with those problems that that person has.

Not only do they cast their own self-judgement and self-condemnation on others, so that others are judged and condemned even as they themselves stand judged and condemned, people who do this cast all their control away from themselves.  This is classical ‘external locus of control’.

And all this projection and transference occurs, typically, through the jettison of agency.  That is, unconsciously.  That ‘agency’ of a person’s personal power to be the master of their own destiny.

Whenever people are unconscious of their attitudes and behaviours that don’t abide in truth, they lose a part of themselves in not being true to themselves and truthful with others, even as you can see, they let others down in the process.  They seem either unaware of or they don’t care about the phenomenon—or their unawareness translates into lack of interest in caring.

Either way, when an individual checks-out of being intrinsically and socially conscious, it shows in more ways than one.

The trouble is, the thinking and acting in ways that projects their individual problems onto others—transferring individual responsibility to others in blame shifting—always boomerangs back upon the person themselves, even as they let others down and find themselves with a tarnished reputation.

Others are always scapegoated and gaslit in the process, but it’s the person who projects and transfers their own responsibility that is most obviously wrong.  And it’s witnessed almost universally, even if they do seem to get away with it a lot of the time.  It’s enough to know that a person who’s in the wrong is wrong, and nothing will vindicate them in the long run; but that takes faith in the shorter term. 

Avoiding unconscious projection and transference of one’s responsibilities onto another is about heeding the call of emotional intelligence, which is individual and social awareness converted into action.  In the simplest terms, owning our responsibility.

A person who intends on staying aware of the temptation to cast the blame on others has power over their management of their social situations at least as far as their own behaviour is concerned.

Such a person accepts that others may not heed the opportunities to honour truth, even though it’s hard being blamed for something that isn’t theirs to own (isn’t their fault).

So it is one thing to manage one’s own responsibilities, but it’s another thing entirely not panicking when others attack.

Repelling the slurs of others is something we typically do as a reflex action, yet the person who anticipates the projections of another has the advantage for themselves and those around them of personal control and social acumen.  Nobody else’s behaviour proves a threat.

The person who manipulates, gaslights, and scapegoats, etc, is judged in their judgement of the other and condemned in their condemnation of the victim.  Their own malevolent behaviour attests to their own aggression, and they stand without defence.

It’s important to live in the light of this truth.  When we see that another person’s malevolence is its own evidence, whether people readily see it as it is or not, there is vindication in the moment.

Better always to be blameless by being hyperaware of our own responsibility and to act in accord with that.

Unconscious, unacknowledged anxiety from deceitfulness

The keys to success in this life ride on integrity—and I’m talking TRUE success, not the appearance of success.  But anxiety will get in the way if it’s unconscious and unacknowledged.  By that I mean that I’m not talking about people with anxiety problems who are trying to manage their anxiety—that type of anxiety isn’t in the frame here.

The anxiety I’m speaking about is the moral kind, where the anxiety is caused through pride—you know, that pride of covetousness that must simply envy everyone and anything that has more or better.

We all know those who present with this anxiety, and it’s best to be on our guard with them.  Do you hear the word, “boundaries”?

The person with unconscious, unacknowledged anxiety is never at peace because there’s always a conquest to be had or made.  They always have an agenda—there is always something they want or “need”.  They’re driven by conspiracy theory—a narrative that people are against them.  They can’t be at peace because they have so many machinations of their ego going on in their minds and hearts.

Little wonder people don’t feel safe around such a person.  You know the feeling when it’s the other person’s anxiety that leaks onto you and your joy, hope, and peace in that moment are stolen, killed, and destroyed.  Your soul can feel intruded upon, even invaded.

When we’re with such a person, we naturally discern that to be on guard is right and appropriate, but we too must watch our own anxiety levels, especially empaths, who can be duped into rescuing a person who’s trying to emotionally swindle them.

Now, what presents as conniving and unsafe doesn’t at first viewing look like anxiety.

This is where one anxiety is differentiated with another.  The typical kind of anxiety is unexplained fear as it presents in our minds and bodies.  It’s a conscious, acknowledged anxiety that we’d prefer to be gone.  It’s often the result of trauma being done to us, and the bearing of that trauma.

Anxiety that causes a person to be duplicitous is not driven from their trauma but is often from a place that causes trauma.  Anxiety that causes a person to be duplicitous comes from a heart devoted to stealing from others, killing the hope of others who are in their way, and quietly or not so quietly destroying people and their reputations.

Watch for the duplicity of a person who seems nice to someone and then talks behind their back.  You can be assured that in their being nice to you, there’s another more insidious narrative about you when you’re not around, IF you present a threat to them.  And let’s face it, when life is a bounty of conquests to be won, you’ll get in the way at some point or other.

Watch for the leader who has this unconscious, unacknowledged anxiety in their heart.

Their countenance is like a pacing lion, prowling and only patient for one reason—to pounce at the right time.  They may accuse you of being inconsistent with your attitude on things, but the real problem is you don’t have the freedom to be truthful with them—they won’t allow you to be.  See how their duplicity fosters duplicity in you and others.  Their leadership is toxic.

I write this to help you see.  Once you see it you can’t unsee it, and it becomes protective as your discernment is piqued and fortified.

When intuition is raised to the level of “I just don’t feel comfortable around that person” we start to watch more intently for why.  You may see that their covetous anxious way leaks onto you and you can’t be at peace or feel safe around them.

Think now of the leader or person of influence who appears relaxed, and you find that your heart is at ease because of it.  It’s like they give you permission to be yourself.  If you ask them why they seem to be at peace, they’ll probably tell you that they don’t have an agenda.  They’re not trying to stitch anyone up.  That’s why your heart can tell you can trust them.

Think of that leader or the person in your life who doesn’t appear to have an agenda and they may even be an encouragement to you and others.  You feel you’re free to be honest with them and to express yourself.

The best people will actually listen when you have something to say, and their honest curiosity demonstrates humility and their abject lack of conniving anxiety.

~

I want to repeat what I mentioned earlier about the source of anxiety.  There’s a huge difference between struggling with an anxiety that happens to you because of trauma, and a person being anxious because their motive is to get something they don’t have out of you or others or situations.  The latter person gives the former person more reason to be anxious.

The anxiety that is a result of another’s behaviour is the trauma that so many bear.

Giving encouragement to a person taking their responsibility

We often deride people for not taking their responsibility—a responsibility nobody else can take—without making the opposite overt.  Think of what it says and does for a person when they’re commended for taking their responsibility—it encourages them to continue in that vein.

When we notice what a person is doing in their owning of their issue or mistake or failure, we communicate to the person that taking responsibility is how to redeem it.

This is where the power is: it doesn’t matter what they’ve said or done if they’re honest and have taken responsibility, because soon they’ll live in the power that defeats despair, guilt, and shame.

Did you read that right?      SHAME.

It’s a word we love to hate, because it takes so much of our personal power for freedom away from us.

But the moment we look truth in its face, and face it without looking away, we meet the pain of that truth in a way that all of us can.  That truth is shame.  We only turn away because shame conditions us into thinking, “Uh, I know that feeling and I can’t stand it.”

The person who takes the full responsibility that they owe for the situation they’re in is simply honouring the truth, and that honouring of the truth will vindicate them—they face the truth NOT motivated by vindication, but because their integrity says, “The truth shall be honoured at all times.”

That’s the motivation: not to have one’s name cleared.  That’s almost irrelevant.  In fact, what taking responsibility says is, “The truth is even more important that my reputation,” and the paradox is, as soon as we turn our heart to the truth rather than self-protection, that, right there, is the moment we’re on the path to vindication.  And that paradox continues in this: the more we STAY in our being wrong for what will always be wrong, the more we’re freed of the burden of the guilt we would otherwise bear.  People forgive us only when we’re truly repentant.

The opportunity any of us has in the moment someone takes their responsibility is this:

-       Notice it

-       Call attention to it

-       Commend them for it

-       Encourage them to continue it

The important thing about taking our responsibility is it’s a feature of true adult living.  It looks harder than it actually is.  As soon as we comprehend it’s about the heart, and about feeling true remorse, that’s the moment when shame is relegated to the irrelevant.

Taking responsibility for our own misdeeds is the beginning of freedom.  It’s the way we deal with shame.  It’s the way we breathe justice into our lives and lives of our loved ones and others we interact with.  It’s the way we live truly.  It’s honestly the only good way to go.

Think of those times and circumstances where people in your life haven’t taken responsibility, or they haven’t grasped the full magnitude of their wrongs, and how much damage and trauma it caused.  See how it’s a miracle when someone sees all the truth to the extent of owning all their responsibility?

Think of the person in your midst, yesterday, today, and tomorrow who takes their responsibility.  Take time to notice it, to call attention to it, to commend them for it, to encourage them to continue in that way.

Think of the power of your words and the power of your presence as you speak these precious seconds of life into the other person.  Their taking responsibility is a miracle, and possibly the greatest personal miracle a person can exemplify, because nothing says “I love others enough to honour the truth” more than taking our responsibility.

NOTE: taking our own responsibility is not about taking a portion of anyone else’s, let’s just be clear about that.  What is another person’s to own is for them, not us.