Can I Get Some Peace?

Stressed? If you’re in healthcare that’s almost a given, right?

Peace can be so elusive amongst the overbooked appointments, long hours, and thinly-stretched patience, all in a highly serious environment with little to no room for error. It can really weigh on you. At times, it can be a thankless job for all the chaos endured.

But what if I told you that’s the exact environment where true peace is available?

Sometimes peace is simply defined as calm and serenity, period. We envision a vacation at a beach resort, basking in the sun’s warm rays. We hear the calming sound of the gentle waves washing ashore. We sip cool, refreshing lemonade while breathing in the salty beach air. But that daydream looks nothing like the reality we live every day.

Lab values will be out of range. Patients will take out their frustrations on you. Coworkers will call in sick during the busiest times of the month. Appointments will run over their allotted timeframes. Emergencies will happen that require immediate response. And medications will be out-of-stock, or worse backordered. Real life is a far cry from a vacation.

Maybe others define peace as a problem-free environment.  Your heart doesn’t race, your blood pressure isn’t raised. Everything works out perfectly as planned…or at least somewhere in the vicinity thereof.

But please identify the last time you’ve experienced a 100% drama-free day at work. If you’re fortunate enough to have come up with one, then more than likely it’s the exception, not the rule. If it is the rule for you, perhaps I need to send my resume to your location. But, I think it’s safe to say that problems are bound to show up all day every day in healthcare.  It’s inherent to the job.

So since I work in a high-stress field, does that mean peace is not attainable for me? Am I destined to be controlled by the unpredictability of the job?

Thankfully, the answer is no. But the intrinsic definition of peace has to be expanded for this to be true.  It’s a given that in calm situations we’d act calmly. Something’s wrong if circumstances are serene and we respond in distress.

While peace is indeed tranquility and calm, the Bible gives context to it. Biblical peace is the experience of calm and tranquility of soul in the midst of turbulent situations. It’s more of a picture of darkened, cloudy skies with flashing lightning, rolling thunder, billowing waves, and you caught right in the middle of it.  When torrential problems flood your office, hospital, clinic, or counter, the tendency may be to allow the outside circumstances to dictate your inward resolve. My submission to you, to us, is peace not only can be, but should be our response.

Philippians 4:6-7 offers some insight. It instructs:

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 comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

When anxiety (the opposite of peace) shows up, the very first response we’re told to have in everything is not complaining, not questioning “Why me?”, and not lashing out. It is prayer (communication with God) and supplication (making an appeal/request/plea). That may be breathing a quick prayer of

• “Lord, I know all wisdom and knowledge finds its origin in You. Please give me wisdom to deal with this dilemma.”

• “Lord, since You’re sovereign, You could have prevented this occurrence. So since You allowed it, show me what You want me to learn from it.”

• “Lord, I’m frustrated right now, but I’m appealing to You for help to see this situation from Your prospective and grow from it.”

• “Lord, we’re short-staffed again today. Please give me the endurance to still serve well despite limited resources.”

• “Lord, help me not return evil for evil. Change my heart to desire your way of responding in difficult situations.”

All of these prayers take the focus off of the problem, the dilemma, the obstacle, the opposition and places it on the God who can intervene to change it…or change us in it. The goal in prayer is to reorient our perspective to God, not acquiesce to the situation at hand.

But the other key essential to a changed perspective is embedded in the caveat “with thanksgiving”. The presentation of problems almost seemingly begs for complaints, doesn’t it? Our routine is disturbed, our balance is upset, things are not working out as expected, the problems just won’t stop coming and there is no end in sight. But in the midst of those disturbances, He clearly instructs us to find a reason or two (or a few) to give thanks. Be intentional about coupling our requests with thanksgiving to Him. Not only does it replace the complaint, which would strengthen the problem in our minds, but it reminds us of Who God is and what He can do because of what we know He has already done. Thanksgiving is a reminder of what has happened to breed anticipation of what, by faith, is possible.

James echoes this sentiment in James 1:2-4. He instructs:

Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

James tells us to change our mind set. Instead of finding a reason to gripe and grumble when trials are encountered, be joyful about it. “That sounds so unrealistic,” you may say. But isn’t that in essence what we as healthcare professionals already do? When a patient presents to the ER with pneumonia symptoms, don’t we “consider it treatable” and move to offer hope in the form of a diagnosis and a treatment plan that will eventually bring them joy?

We see the symptoms, but we look toward the solution. I’m just asking you to transfer that same line of thinking to your chaotic situation. No, we’re not joyful for the Murphy’s Law day. But we can choose to keep our eyes focused on what the trial will produce in and through us. Endurance, growth, spiritual maturity, and a new opportunity to see God at work (pun intended). We gain the perspective that this is a test, it’s only a test and one, incidentally, that we are equipped to pass.

When prayer and supplication coupled with thanksgiving becomes the natural response to trials, Philippians 4:7 tells us “the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”  Despite external circumstances, God’s peace will protect our hearts (emotions, desires, intentions) and minds (thoughts, will) from responding inappropriately when we realize who we are…we are in Christ Jesus. And according to 2 Corinthians 5:17, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”

What makes me the most enthusiastic is the nature of the peace God supplies. It surpasses all comprehension. You can’t even understand why you are so calm when your patient load just doubled. Others can’t figure out how you maintained a pleasant attitude when patient #3 just unloaded all of their frustrations on you. It’s inconceivable that while everyone around you is complaining, you’d find reasons to give thanks. It literally defies comprehension because it is not sourced in us, but God. And that’s what distinguishes real peace from what’s generally thought to be peace.

To solidify the point, Colossians 3:15-16 tells us, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”  From theses two verses, I want to highlight three quick points.

First, the message is underscored again of our need to be thankful, finding various ways to ensure we are constantly reminded of God’s goodness in our lives. This ultimately alters our outlook of our problem. Second, the word of Christ is told to richly dwell within us. That’s not casually “reading a scripture a day to keep the devil away” or only opening the Bible at church on Sundays.

Rich indicates wealth/abundance. We want a wealth of knowledge about Christ before the trial shows up, so we can appeal to His word when the trial shows up to gain victory in it. That takes valuing God’s opinion enough to find out what it is. That takes an investment of time. That’ll take a whole other blog post to completely delve into. But suffice it to say here, knowing the word of Christ will guide the content of our prayers, because God obligates Himself to His word.

Third and lastly, we’re told in vs 15 to let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts. Sometimes our problem isn’t a hectic day with many things going wrong. Sometimes, it’s a difficult decision that we are called upon to make that isn’t cut-and-dry. Maybe we’re torn between a few good options, but can’t decide on the final choice.

That’s the time to let God’s peace rule or make the call in your life. Think of an official in sports, who makes the determination whether it’s an incomplete pass, touchdown, ball, strike, etc. Let the presence (or absence) of God’s peace in a decision “make the call” in your heart and finalize the decision.

To review, when trials come into our lives to threaten our sense of peace, inward tranquility despite outward circumstances,

• Search God’s word to find out His perspective on that topic

• Pray about it and ask for His help in approaching it

• Find ways to give thanks instead of complaining

• If still torn between options, let the presence (or absence) of God’s peace be the deciding factor in which decision you make

True peace is indeed available to you in any situation.  And as promised in Isaiah 26:3, God will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are stayed on Him, because they trust in Him.