“You will guard him and keep him in perfect and constant peace whose mind [both its inclination and its character] is stayed on You, because he commits himself to You, leans on You, and hopes confidently in You.” (Isaiah 26:3, Amplified Bible)
The Amplified translation is the version of the scriptures that never uses one word when three words will do; but its value is at those times when we need to “turn up the volume” on scripture so that we may hear it’s voice more clearly.
As Rudyard Kipling wrote in his magnificent poem, “If. . .”: “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you. . . Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it. . .” *
The source of such peace is total and enduring trust in God.
Beware: There are many imitations of this peace but no substitutes; and many shortcuts to the end-state that Kipling describes. Don’t be fooled. – Luther
* NOTE: If you are interested in reading the full text of Kipling’s poem, “If. . .”, I have provided it below:
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build’em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
– Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
