Faith Talks host: Hello, I’m Jana Faith.

And I’m Anna Faith.

And welcome to Episode 6 of Faith Talks.

And today we’re going to be discussing the fruit of the Spirit, peace.

You know, one of the things I think of when I hear the word peace is one of those like inspirational political speeches where somebody is promising peace in our time or something like that.

Faith Talks host: You know, another thing that I think of is just quietness in any setting, whether it’s a library or also I was thinking in nature scenes often give us peace like a lake that is as still as glass with nothing messing it up or a beautiful sunset that is just so serene and full of peace with small birds chirping and no wind.

And, you know, that kind of goes right along with the definition we found, which says that peace is freedom from disturbance.

Faith Talks host: But, you know, as we were thinking, true peace really isn’t freedom from disturbance, but it’s really freedom in disturbance.

And we actually found this cute little story that really illustrates this point.

Faith Talks host: Long ago, a man sought the perfect picture of peace.

Not finding one that satisfied, he announced a contest to produce this masterpiece.

The challenge stirred the imagination of artists everywhere, and paintings arrived from far and wide.

Faith Talks host: Finally, the great day of revelation arrived.

The judges uncovered one peaceful scene after another, while the viewers clapped and cheered.

The tensions grew, only two pictures remained unveiled.

Faith Talks host: As a judge pulled the cover from one, a hush fell over the crowd.

A mere smooth lake reflected lacy green birches under the soft blush of the evening sky.

Along the grassy shore, a flock of sheep grazed undisturbed.

Surely this was the winner.

Faith Talks host: Then the last painting was uncovered, and the crowd gasped in surprise.

Could this be peace?

A tumultuous waterfall cascaded down a rocky precipice.

The crowd could almost feel its cold, penetrating spray.

Stormy gray clouds threatened to explode with lightning, wind, and rain.

In the midst of the thundering noises and bitter chill, a spindly tree clung to the rocks at the edge of the falls.

One of the branches reached out in front of the torrential waters as if foolishly seeking to experience its full power.

Faith Talks host: A little bird had built a nest in the elbow of that branch.

Content and undisturbed in her stormy surroundings, she rested on her eggs.

With her eyes closed and her wings ready to cover her little ones, she manifested peace that transcends all earthly turmoil.

Faith Talks host: You see, peace is more than just the absence of conflict. it’s a state of rest during the conflict.

It’s like completeness, wholeness, and even one definition we found said it points to the presence of something.

And obviously we know that this is Jesus.

And I think it’s been so neat in our study of the fruit of the Spirit just to realize that really each of the fruit is really just Jesus.

Faith Talks host: So as we were thinking of who to interview for this specific fruit of the Spirit, we thought, well, you know, let’s just choose someone with a peaceful life, quiet and calm, no kids yelling, no trials.

Faith Talks host: I’ve got it.

Maybe like somebody who works like on a nature preserve.

Faith Talks host: Yeah, totally.

Well, you know, just like we discussed, peace is not really freedom from disturbance, but freedom in disturbance.

And not like our interviewee today has a chaotic life.

But we have here with us today, Mrs.

Schultz, Jenny Schultz, and she’s the wife of one of the assistant pastors here at Falls Baptist, and she enjoys discipling and counseling other ladies.

On the side, or not so side, she also is the mother of seven children.

And honestly, she is one of those people who always chooses peace, no matter what chaos is going on in her life.

Faith Talks host: And you know, one thing I actually just thought of is that Mrs.

Schultz is also a librarian.

And with your first comment, that’s one of those peaceful scenes.

So Mrs.

Schultz can help with that a little bit too.

So the first question we have for you today, Mrs.

Schultz, is just what would you say peace is?

Guest: I think I need to start by defining what peace isn’t, because so much of the world defines peace, like you said, as freedom from disturbance, where there’s no conflict, where there’s a whole lot of tolerance and acceptance and nobody’s feathers are ruffled.

And as long as there’s sin in the world, there’s going to be conflict.

There’s going to be lack of tolerance.

And frankly, there’s going to be a lack of love.

And so we need to seek peace based on what the Bible says.

And that is, like you’ve said, it’s freedom in disturbance.

It’s that ability to respond to what’s happening

Faith Talks host: with the peace of God.

That’s really good.

Now, how would you say you have experienced peace or the lack of peace in your past, specifically your teen or young adult years?

Interesting question,

Guest: because as a young person, it was something that I thought about in an unusual way to the point that having a discussion with somebody where I talked about peace as being kind of just this warm, fuzzing feeling that came over you in a mystical way.

And they pretty immediately challenged that thought, saying that peace was something you actually had to seek after.

And I had never thought about it that way as a very young teenager.

And it led me in a pursuit of what the peace of God really was.

And I had grown up going to church my whole life, and I had really thought a lot about the things of God.

I was actually quite involved in my youth group, and it wasn’t until I was in college that I really began to get gripped with fear.

And then I knew the peace of God was not evident in my life.

I was fearful to the point that I remember waking up in my dorm room early in the mornings and I would be afraid the rapture had happened in the night.

So I check all my roommates’ beds to see if they were still there.

There was just this gripping fear and a real lack of peace in my life.

And it was then when I was in college that I was really confronted with my sin and a need to resolve my sin issue with God.

It wasn’t just about me being a good people pleaser, which is what I was as a little girl, but it was about me taking my sin and giving it to Jesus so that he could then in return give me his peace.

And really, that first time where my fear was replaced with peace was the first time I understood what the peace of God was.

And frankly, I’ve had

Faith Talks host: to go back to that application of truth many times in my pursuit of peace.

That’s really interesting.

You know, as I was driving today, I was actually thinking that if there is no God in life, there’s really no reason for you to have peace.

Like it’s actually really impossible because you could be scared about the political scene or like you said, this, that fear of death or even with this coronavirus or your career or even being taken advantage of by others.

You know, you really, You really can’t have that peace if you don’t believe in God first, but then also if you haven’t taken him as your Savior.

And one quote we actually came up with, I think it was last year in Sunday school, we were reading over a passage, is that you can’t know the peace of God until you know the God of peace.

And I thought that was just a good way to put it.

Now, Mrs.

Schultz, as you’ve been on this journey of peace, how would you say you kind of talked about how you’ve experienced it, but how would you say someone else can experience that true peace?

Guest: A verse that I claimed early on in my walk with God was Psalm 34, 14, and it says, depart from evil and do good.

Seek peace and pursue it.

And I’ve been reminded again and again that peace is something to pursue.

But notice how the verse starts.

It says, depart from evil and do good.

It is a turning away from my wrong decisions and my wrong ways and a turning to the only source of real hope and peace.

And it’s the ability to say no to self and then to say yes to Jesus on every single level in the little things.

And as we learn to do that in the little things, then we’ll learn to do it in the big things.

It’s choosing God’s will and being content with it.

Faith Talks host: To go right along with that thought, I was talking to my dad the other day, and he just brought up the verse in John 14, I think verse 27, which says, Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth, give I unto you.

Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

And as you look at the context of this verse, it’s when Jesus was commissioning the 12 disciples and with the Great Commission, and my dad just brought up the fact that the only way we as Christians can have that true peace is when we’re obeying or choosing to obey the command of God to every believer to do their part to reach the world.

And that just really struck me in the broader sense that every command of God must be obeyed in order for me to have peace.

Guest: You know, I remember sharing that verse with the lady I had led to the Lord and was discipling when she texted me one day from work saying, I think I’m either losing my mind or something’s wrong with me because in the middle of all the things I’m going through, I feel at total peace.

And I was able to share that verse with her and I said, oh no, that’s the peace of God.

It’s something that you’ve never understood before.

Faith Talks host: That’s really good because I’ve even noticed even especially in college when there would be a really like lots of exams or something.

Sometimes those were the times where I had the most peace.

And you knew it wasn’t just because, you know, maybe you were having a good day, but it was because it was Jesus because that was definitely not anything natural that could have happened.

So this next question here, if we already have the peace living inside of us, how do we access it?

Guest: It’s really very similar to the way you got saved.

You know, think about what Jesus did and what you did when you got saved.

All you had to do is choose Jesus, and he did all of the saving.

And it’s really the exact same with any of the fruit of the Spirit because it’s all totally available to us, but we have to choose it.

It’s really just choosing to accept what is, and God does the rest.

Faith Talks host: I like what you say how it’s not just the passive because that’s true.

Often I think of peace as just a passive thing that comes over you, but it’s actually active that you choose it.

Faith Talks host: It’s not just a feeling.

Yeah, that’s good.

And another thing, in many instances, peace is related to the future, one’s future.

What would you say about that?

Guest: Well, when you think about people living in fear and anxiety, so often fear and anxiety is coupled with Christians not being in the will of God.

And that happens in the little things and in the big things.

I’ve said on so many different occasions, success in my day is being able to pillow my head, not getting everything done, but knowing that at every time my schedule was changed, I knew I was in the will of God.

And I can know that when I followed God’s will all day, that I’ve done what he wanted me to do.

And really on those little things is again, where we’re learning to trust God for the big things.

It’s not asking the question, what do I want to do right now or what I feel like doing, but really asking what’s God’s will for me right now and then choosing to be content in it.

Again, in the little things, I have time right now.

Am I just going to take a nap because that’s what my body feels like?

Or am I going to get the work done that I know I need to do?

Because on those little levels, when I say yes to Jesus and no to self, I’m actually learning how to access the very will of God for the big things in life.

Peace is really inseparable with the will of God and the will of God.

It’s really found by just looking to Jesus.

Faith Talks host: Wow, that actually reminds me of something I read in The Pursuit of God, how it’s talking about how if you want to have that internal peace, you shouldn’t divide your life into the secular and the sacred.

Because if you do that, you’re going to be constantly frustrated because you want to be doing the sacred activities, but you don’t have time and you think you’re wasting your time by doing it.

But it’s like you said, if you know you’re doing God’s will, just doing whatever task he put in front of you next, just pursuing that peace, whether it’s reading your Bible or maybe cleaning your bathroom floor.

You can just be at peace knowing that you’re doing God’s will.

And we kind of already covered this next question, but it’s been so neat working through the fruit of the Spirit, just seeing that every fruit in its essence is Jesus.

So how would you say that peace ties to Jesus?

Guest: Now, one of my favorite verses is Isaiah 26, 3 that says, will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee.

Pursuit of peace is simply pursuit of a person.

It’s Jesus.

And frankly, that is how to find the will of God.

So often when we are trying to figure out what God’s will is, and we get so focused on asking God what it is, and all he’s saying is, it’s just me.

And when we see Jesus only, his will becomes very plain.

But when we get muddled up in the actual process of it, we lose Jesus in it.

There’s been a lot of times in my life when God has asked me to take a very specific step.

And I’ve been so tempted to say, okay, Lord, if you tell me the next four steps after that, I will have no problem taking this one step.

But there’s so often when God says, I’m showing you this one, you take this one, and I’ll give you light for the next.

And you know what?

He always does.

And so often he’s just teaching us to trust him and to claim his peace for that one step.

And when I yield to God in the one thing, he gives me

Faith Talks host: direction for the next.

That’s really good.

So just to sum up all these thoughts that we talked about today, how can we just apply these truths to make daily choices to live in peace?

I think it boils

Guest: down to three things.

It is obeying the Lord in the little things, embracing his will, and then taking some step of faith that then that peace meets us in that faith step.

Romans 15, 13 says, now the God of all hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that’s faith, that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost.

That’s where Jesus does it.

And so it’s the reality of peace is really experienced in our life when we just obey, take his will for ours, and then we take a step of faith.

Okay, let me make it really practical.

You know, when you’re laying in bed in the morning, the alarm goes off, and there’s no part of you that wants to get out of bed.

And just like we would love for peace to just warm over us like some mystical feeling, wouldn’t we love for the Lord to just throw us out of bed?

But it’s at that moment that I have to obey what I know that he wants me to do, embrace his will, which is actually getting up.

But I’ve got to take a step.

And then his peace meets me as I enter his will for the day.

And I know that’s a little step, but when we learn to take that step of faith, the next one becomes easier and easier.

And I have then stepped into the will of God for my day.

And as I continue in

Faith Talks host: his will, I’ll see his will unveiled before me.

That’s a really neat thought.

You know, before this faith talks I might have thought that peace was just peace and quiet you know but peace can actually be that alarm clock you know we could even name our alarm clock peace because that’s making us to get out of bed to take that step of faith and I think that’s so neat too how in a lot of ways peace is tied to faith because if you have the faith that God is who he said he is and that he’s in complete control you can be at peace to just obey and take that next

Faith Talks host: step of faith that God’s leading you to.

So remember girls, as you choose faith for peace, faith doesn’t just talk, faith walks.