Isaiah 26:3 You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.
In days gone by, when a farmer would plant their fields, they would orient themselves on a distant landmark and do their best to keep that in the center of their vision. If they looked closely at their surroundings, they would likely have a crooked row! The distant view would help them to maintain a somewhat straight row. But now advances in technology have made that method quaint and ineffective. Now the tractor can be guided by GPS and they have a nearly flawless row as a result. Now they are ‘watching’ a satellite in orbit around the earth!
Isaiah wrote this prophecy, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to the people of Judah who were in for some very bad times indeed. Not many years after Isaiah wrote this they were destroyed and carried off to Babylon. Was Isaiah mistaken? Did he get it wrong? No. But if they had oriented their minds on current events, they might have thought so.
When we fix our vision on the daily events around us we may become disoriented. We might think that things are completely out of hand and wonder, “Where is God?” Or even that He doesn’t care or even exist. There’s not much peace in that way of thinking. But in that case we need to reorient our vision. We need to look farther. When our mind is stayed, or focused, on God we can begin to see the long view. God always has the long view in mind. We have to learn that as well.
We go wrong when we think that the Bible and God have promised us peaceful days and a smooth, carefree existence in the here and now. We have too often been convinced that if we don’t have that, we’ve done something wrong. But what about Jesus? Or Paul? Were their days on earth easy and carefree? Absolutely not! Were they at peace? Completely!
Paul did not pretend he had no trouble. Far from it. But he didn’t focus on the trouble. The problems he had did not become his guiding principles. His mind was forward. It was ‘stayed on God’. He wrote to the Romans,
Romans 8:18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
He did have sufferings. We do too. But, for the Christian, they are not worth comparing to what is in store for us! When we change our focus from current events to God’s promises for the future, we too will have perfect peace!
Blessings
