Being in Malaysia has been hard for me and for my team. It is really heavy here and the spiritual warfare has been really beating down on us. The combination of spiritual warfare, missing my family and uncertainties has really been weighting down on me. At the beginning of the month I started longing and searching for peace and comfort from the father.
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you”
Matthew 7:7
I started digging in the word to try and find an answer I prayed and prayed. At first I wasn’t sure what I was actually looking for. After a couple days of searching our ministry host unbeknownst to him spoke over me a time of waiting. Unbeknownst to him, our ministry host spoke over me a time of waiting. For me this was the first piece of the puzzle. This has never been my favorite thing to be told to do, to wait. This time I decided to embrace the time of waiting I had in front of me. Something I just recently learned is that waiting doesn’t mean being idle sometimes it means being more present in the place that you are, and not looking too far into the future but just taking life one day at a time.
Two more puzzle pieces were revealed to me through bible verses that were given to me by two of my teammates. At this point I had only mentioned my search briefly to them so we knew immediately it was God giving me these verses through my teammates. The first verse I was given was Psalms 23:4
“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff they COMFORT me”
I have known this verse since a young age. I even memorized the whole chapter years ago, but never did I catch the meaning of this verse like I did reading it this time. God showed me through this verse that even though the place I am physically is heavy and at times very dark he is with me through all of it. I have no need to fear because he walks with me wherever my feet take me. His rod and his staff comfort me with their protection. He showed me that to start finding comfort in him all I had to do was to start trusting that He is always with me, in every situation and in everyplace.
The next verse I was given was 2 Thessalonians 3:16
“Now may the Lord of PEACE Himself give you PEACE at all times in every way. The Lord will be with you all”
The Lord is the Lord of all, so by nature he is the Lord of peace. He showed me by relying on him and searching for Him I will find peace in Him. Not just peace in the ways that I was searching for but in all ways, in ways I could never have imagined. Not just peace for my heart like I looking for but peace in my mind, body and spirit.
Now for the last piece of the puzzle, I had the other three pieces but the picture still wasn’t complete. So my search continued. I wasn’t sure where I was going to find the piece but I wasn’t going to give up. What I didn’t know is that God had already given me the last piece to my puzzle. Let me rewind to the end of my time in Thailand, before this whole search even started. In the last week of being in Thailand, I had started reading my way through Matthew and through the Psalms, over the time I spent reading through the psalms I had come across a phrase that I didn’t quite understand. It is a phrase I had heard many times before but never really understood the power this phrase held. This phrase is mention many times in the Psalms, 127 times to be exact. These two little words had been given to me before I even knew I needed them. The two words I needed most, Steadfast Love.
Steadfast is defined as firm, unwavering, reliable, sure and fixed in place. What does this have to do with my search for peace and comfort? I know this may sound like it is a whole other topic, but really it has everything to do with finding peace and comfort. If I wasn’t sure in God’s steadfast love I couldn’t even begin to understand that he is the Lord of all therefore the Lord of peace. Without knowing his love is steadfast how could I be sure that he wants me to be at peace in Him? How could I know he wants to comfort me? I wouldn’t be sure that the comfort he gives me is genuine or know that he would give it to me ever again. Knowing His love is steadfast shows me that he will always be there for me and that I can always rely on Him.
Psalms 107:1 “Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for His STEADFAST LOVE endures forever!”
