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“When our hearts have not found peace, we become filled with the darkest expressions of ourselves.”

A thought by Erwin Raphael McManus from his book, The Way of the Warrior (p. 11). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

And we don’t want that, do we?

Erwin says, “We’re filled with not only fear and doubt but also greed and envy, anger and bitterness, loneliness and disconnection, despair and hopelessness. Each of these are external forces that war against our inner worlds.

“We struggle with envy because we want the life that isn’t ours.

“We struggle with greed because we want to possess what is not ours to have.

“We struggle with feelings of insignificance because we have made our worth dependent on the opinions of others.

“We struggle with identity because we don’t know who we are outside of what we do.

“We struggle with loneliness because we are searching for love rather than giving it.”

He goes on, “We will never know peace as long as we are slaves to external forces of the world and create our identities from the outside in. We will never know peace if we lose the present because we are trapped in the past and paralyzed by the future. This is in no small part why we live in a culture crippled by depression and anxiety. Depression is rooted in your past; anxiety is rooted in your imagined future.”

He says, “You lose the present when you hide from your past and run from your future. Depression and anxiety convince you that the past is your future and so the future must be avoided at all costs. Scripture tells us to ‘be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.’ (Philippians 4:6 NSAB)

“The path of peace comes not from the outside in but from the inside out. Here’s how Isaiah described the path toward peace: ‘You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.’ (Isaiah 26:3)”

He then says, “This is the path to mindfulness. This is the way to peace of mind. Not a journey to nothingness, but a journey to fullness. It is God who gives us perfect peace. More specifically, it is Jesus who has come to bring us this peace that our souls long for.

And that is the path we want to follow isn’t it?

Yes, yes!

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