Advent Reflections: Peace When Your Mind Is in Pieces

Busyness usually comes hand in hand with the Christmas season. It seems that the end of year is a constant slope beginning with Thanksgiving and speeding down to New Year’s. This is both energizing—time with family, friends, celebration—and also wearying over time. For some the season is smooth, but for many the road to the new year is full of bumps along the way. Whether from family stress, grief, feeling overwhelmed, or a sense of dread of the unknown, Christmas season can be the most wonderful time of the year or the most mentally chaotic.

When Your Mind Is in Pieces During Christmas

Christmas is a reflective season. This isn’t a bad thing. Reflection can be incredibly good and beneficial. And yet, it can become detrimental when it tears our minds in a million different directions.

Have you ever wanted to simply be present, but couldn’t achieve it because you had too many things to think about?

Philippians 4:6, in The Passion Translation, actually describes this really well. The passage begins by saying this: “Don’t be pulled in different directions”. When we experience end of year stress or anxiety, it may feel like we are being pulled in different directions. This causes chaos and confusion and makes it difficult to feel joyful or hopeful about the time we are in and the new season that is coming.

And yet Paul didn’t stop writing there. Here is what he was saying:

Peace Is Having Wholeness of Mind 

“Don’t be pulled in different directions or worried about a thing. Be saturated in prayer throughout each day, offering your faith-filled requests before God with overflowing gratitude. Tell Him every detail of your life, then God’s wonderful peace that transcends human understanding will guard your heart and mind through Jesus Christ.” – Philippians 4:6-7, TPT

We may be experiencing a season where our mind is pulled in a million different directions—grief, sadness, loneliness, anxiety, stress, loss, overwhelm, foreboding, etc.— but when we take all these things and place them in God’s hands through prayer, then we can experience God’s wonderful peace that transcends human understanding.

What Does Peace Mean in the Bible?

Let’s think about what Paul meant when he wrote “peace” here. In the original Greek, peace is eirēnē, meaning the absence of war or conflict, the state of tranquility and harmony. In Hebrew, this word translates as shalom, which means wholeness, completeness, welfare, prosperity, health, and right relationship with God and others.

Think about it. Paul is saying that when we carry all our fears and anxieties, and give them over to God, we will have this kind of peace. Instead of having a mind that is being pulled in a million directions, when we tell God everything going on in our minds, He takes that brokenness and distraction and exchanges it with peace, harmony, wholeness and completeness. We pray and hand our anxieties to God, and He speaks peace, declaring that the war is over.

This Christmas season, remember this: God has made a way to end the war in your thoughts and experience hope, joy, and wholeness!

Does God’s Peace Last?

The best news is that God’s peace, His shalom and eirēnē kind of peace, isn’t just a passing offer. It is something constant and true, that will guard our hearts and our minds. Not only does God give us peace, but He gives us the Person of Peace Himself, Jesus, who through the power of the Holy Spirit stands guard over our minds and hearts and protects us from having our minds pulled in a million directions. God’s peace transcends all human understanding, providing wholeness, protection, and lasting results.

Reflect

If you’ve been pulled in a million directions, take time to sit with God and pour out your heart to Him. Tell Him every scattered thought. Remember, it doesn’t have to look nice and orderly. Jesus loves our messy and meets us there. Once you’ve handed all those scattered worries into His capable hands, take some time to ask God to come and exchange every single one of those worries with His peace.

Believe that you will receive it. He loves you. Through His coming to earth, work on the cross, resurrection and ascension, we can now participate in all He is. The Person of Peace is here with us. In Him there is lasting wholeness and completeness.

“Hark! the herald angels sing,
Glory to the new-born King;
Peace on earth, and mercy mild;
God and sinners reconciled.”

Until next time,
Anna

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Photo by Mariana B. on Unsplash