Whenever we become confused by something in our personal experience, we’re in danger of blaming God. But God isn’t in the wrong; we are. Confusion means there is some perversity in our thinking or behavior that we refuse to give up. The instant we do give the thing up, everything becomes as clear as daylight. But as long as we’re trying to serve two separate ends—our own and God’s—we’ll meet with perplexity. Our attitude must be one of complete reliance on him. Once we have this attitude, we’ll find that nothing is easier than living the saintly life. Difficulty comes when we try to usurp the authority of the Holy Spirit and use it for our ends.
“My peace I give you.” Whenever you obey God, he always responds by giving you the seal of his peace—the witness of an unfathomable peace, the supernatural peace of Jesus. Whenever peace fails to arrive, wait until it does or find out the reason why it doesn’t. If you act on impulse or in a burst of heroism, the peace of Jesus will not witness to you. You’ll have no confidence in God, and nothing will seem simple, because the spirit of simplicity is born of the Holy Spirit, not of your own decisions.
Questions and perplexities arise whenever I cease to obey. When I’m obeying, problems never come between me and God. Any problem that arises serves only to keep my mind awake and amazed at his revelation. When I’m walking in obedience and I encounter problems (and I will encounter many), it only increases my ecstatic delight, because I know that my Father knows, and that I’m going to get to watch and see how he unravels what appears to be an impossible situation.
