Hi Ch

it is an internal peace, a peace knowing that you are a child of God, that you are loved and forgiven, that no matter what goes on in the struggles of your daily life , everything will ultimately be ok because your God/Jesus is at the helm of your heart.

The world gives a false since of peace a false sense of security that can and does come crashing down at any time, but when Jesus sits on the throne of your heart, like a perfect groom to an imperfect bride , we can trust, rely and rest in his promises for us because the invisible God has reviled himself in Jesus to have us understand that He is Love and no longer or ever did want to hold a hat of Judgment.

This is who we serve, who we love, praise and worship , not for what we have done but for who He is, and that gives me great internal peace that gives me great strength that at the last hour i need not be afraid for He has gone before me like no man ever has, His grave is empty, oh death were is thy sting, where is your victory !

no wonder the apostles could rejoice in the sufferings as they ministered the gospels on  to ultimate death , because there faith turned to conviction that Jesus has risen!!!!!!!!!, and that truth Gives Peace and Joy to the inner man that resides in us.

Thank you ,BB, for taking the time to give your thoughts.

This is inner peace. And inner peace is the precondition for outer peace.

blackbelt

Wonderful post --

Peace - Shalom - fullness of life. 

If I may share an experience........

June 21, 2009 ....... I am laying in a hospital bed in the emergency ward...    I have suffered a bad spinal injury due to a fall at home ... in the bathroom of all places.   At that point I am completely paralysed from the neck down and its uncertain how things will turn out.    I am all alone and it is all coming home to me.....    I can't even pray I am so low and scared.     Then a peace comes over me .... its ok  .....     This was not a "I am going to be healed" or anything like that.   It was the kind of peace where I knew that God was right there and no matter how it turned out ... I was not alone.....    I just knew.   No promises of this or that ..... just peace.      I settled down and I knew I could and would face whatever was to come.

Since then I have recovered back much of what I lost.    My right side is still weak and my legs sometimes give me some trouble.   Pain ... ah well ... its quite manageable.   No matter .... I know that I am not alone.

I am grateful for my recovery and I am grateful for being alive.    I am grateful for the experience of that connection.

Peace is not absence of trouble, nor is peace a resolution of trouble.   Peace is much deeper .... peace is a peculiar contentment in spite of trouble.

Thank you for allowing me to share that experience.

Hugs

Rita

@Rita

I hear you , I had the same peacefully feeling and strength when my wife was on life support back in July of 06 and I was told to pull the plug. 

Rita - my experience was in many ways similar to me - but mine was mental rather than physical anguish.  I had reached a point when I simply wanted to disappear.  I don't know if I was suicidally or not - I just know I felt such despair that I didn't want to live anymore.  And a voice spoke to me, a feeling of peace flowed over me, and just felt that peace surrounding me and the reassurance I was loved and valued and everything would be all right.     Things didn't change immediately.   I was still without family or close friends.  I still had financial worries.  The man I would have died for still treated me with indifferent kindness and even though he broke up with his girlfriend shortly thereafter he didn't turn to me and he eventually married someone else, as I did.   I've even felt despair since then, but never that deep blackness - through it all now I am convinced that I am not alone, God is with me, and nothing can separate me from the love of God and the peace that passes understanding.

Rita - add me to the list.

Peace comes, not from intervention, but the experience of connection and the realisation that we are not alone - that God is our constant companion.

That realisation is so important, it's quite simply life changing.

Its a Peace full Easy feeling 

Eagles Classic !

Nicely put, my Aussie friend. Nothing to add save that, as an agnostic, I might stop after "we are not alone". Might.

Mendalla

Well said blackbelt.

Howzabout if I say God is a concept, rather than a person?

A word used to describe the unknowable, but with the faith that whatever form it takes, it exists? 

Do I have any advance on "might" ?

For me, "God" is basically a mythological image we place on the forces that create and shape reality. So I suppose worded this way, it could work for me. However, I don't really use the term these days so redefining it doesn't really budge things on the "might".

What you describe is, to me, more like the Taoists' "true way" that cannot be named ("The way that can be named is not the true way") and "God" is very much a name in my books. I'm all for reimagining (to steal a buzz word for the entertainment industry) religious language, but I have a bit of a blind spot where "God" is concerned. The unknowable (I like "ineffable" myself) is just that ... unknowable/ineffable and using the the name "God" for it takes away from that unknowability IMHO because there is are images and ideas associated with "God" that are known and knowable.

Mendalla

I love how you know that the unknowable exists.

"God" is a divisive word with a lot of baggage.  It's my opinion that Christians want to use it to describe the unknowable in an attempt to salvage the word and give it better connotations.  But we have a better choice of words for the unknowable - we can call it "the unknowable".

Peace comes to me when I am reminded (by myself, by others, by God) that I am not alone . . . that God is always with me.  Peace is there when I say "God, help me remember that nothing is going to happen today that You and I can't handle together."

I agree with you, chansen.

It is strange that I know the unknowable exists.

We have a word for it - it's called faith. (You, as an athiest, would not understand this word faith either- but it exists.)

As to what word to use - I don't think it matters that much. It's a label, but it's not the essence.

This exactly describes what I feel also, Beloved.

Sure I know what faith is.  Someone once said, "Faith is believing in things when common sense tells you not to."  I think that is slightly better than Mark Twain's "Faith is believing what you know ain't so."

If you were really all that interested in what humanity does not know, you'd probably be a scientist, or a keen follower of science.  I'm not aware that you are.  I know you're a Christian, but Christianity has never taught us anything about the universe us that we didn't already know.

I think a better definition of faith is simply: belief.

Is faith necessarily believing something that's total crap?  Not always, what if you have faith in a child who is good at what they do?

Is faith necessarily religious? No, see the above example.

Can you have faith in a plan that fails horribly?  Yup.

Faith = Belief IMO.

As-salaamu alaikum

-Omni

It's like this. I had faith that an Aussie would win Le Tour. Common sense told me that an Aussie had never won before - but still I had faith.

In case you missed it, an Aussie called Cadel Evans won.

(BTW, I'm not serious - I sometimes enjoy a bit of light-hearted banter - and, yes, I've got no idea how that relates to science.) 

I am reminded of the Chinese Proverb

If there is light in the soul,
There will be beauty in the person.
If there is beauty in the person,
There will be harmony in the house.
If there is harmony in the house,
There will be order in the nation.
If there is order in the nation,
There will be peace in the world.

For me that is the message of Jesus.  I sadly believe the message has been lost in translation.