Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. – Philippians 4:6-7

NICE – FRANCE: I have to be honest; as an editorialist and a commentator, I am becoming fatigued by the violence – numbed and tired – and I’m not sure that I can articulate anything fresh, redemptive, and helpful today.

That’s the truth about me. But my limitation is always God’s opportunity, because there’s another truth at play – and that is the fact that the God who created us, and who placed us here on Earth with the intention that we experience joy in community, still has everything to say that is fresh, redemptive, healing, and exactly the kind of help that we need.

This is one reason I always try to write in tandem with God, so that it’s not my wisdom, my words, my encouragement, so much as the Spirit speaking through me. I don’t have anything to say at all if I am not speaking from my heart – and it just so happens that my heart belongs to Jesus.

So this time the attack took the form of a heavy truck that plowed through a crowded street jammed with people celebrating the exact same freedom that evidently bothers many people who live without experiencing the “peace that passes understanding.”

The peace that passes understanding is the Jesus kind of peace, and it’s less a feeling than it is an orientation toward life. The Jesus peace lifts us, it sets us on solid ground, and it necessarily impacts the way that we relate to both people and situations. It’s exactly what I need when I feel I feel overwhelmed by the world; it’s exactly what the world needs from the Body of Christ; it’s how Jesus expects to relate to the world through us.

Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. – John 14:27