How to Find Peace

by Autumn Dickson

There is a verse in the bible that is probably one of the most quoted and appreciated verses of all time. Christ shared it the night of the Passover amidst instituting the sacrament, teaching and prophesying, and washing the feet of His disciples. He spoke peace to His disciples just a little bit before He went to the garden and suffered.

John 14:27 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.

Think of the context in which this saying was given to the disciples. Christ knew what was coming. He knew that the coming night would not be peaceful, nor the hours that followed it (at least not in the usual sense of the word). He knew that “peace” as defined by the world would very soon be snatched away from His disciples. But still, He promised to leave them with peace.

What kind of peace was He trying to give them? What does it look like and how do we receive it in our darkest moments?

To have faith

The kind of peace offered by our Savior is not a quiet morning. It is not perfect children or tons of money to do what we need and want. It is not a promise of health. It certainly wasn’t what He was offering His disciples in the moment He made the promise, and it’s not what He’s offering us either. A huge point of coming to earth was turmoil and opposition so offering an escape from that would diminish the ability of the Plan of Salvation to exalt us.

So how does He give peace?

Receiving peace requires faith in Him. Such a simple sentence, but I believe there’s a whole lot to unpack there. For Easter, we’re talking about the peace that comes with faith. But we’re going to have to talk a lot about faith to understand the kind of faith we need in order to receive peace.

We often talk about how faith is an action word, and it absolutely is. Faith in God drives us to keep the commandments which oftentimes leads us away from circumstances that may bring more turmoil, and that’s awesome. In the same breath, not all turmoil comes from choices we’ve made, and sometimes we’re also going to be making mistakes So what does faith look like in the circumstances that are beyond our control or in the situations where the mistake has been made?

Let’s first look at how the experiences of the disciples might have changed if they had felt faith.

The disciples during the time of crucifixion 

Let it be known that this is not a critique of the disciples and how they responded with the events around Christ being taken and killed. For some reason, the Holy Ghost was not operating in the same way during Christ’s mortal ministry (see Bible Dictionary, “Holy Ghost”), and we know how the Holy Ghost plays a key role in many of these kinds of circumstances. This is not a critique, it’s a way to observe the past (since hindsight is 2020) and know how to apply it to our current and future circumstances.

So the disciples are sitting with Christ at the Passover dinner. He teaches many things that were likely hard to be understood without the Holy Ghost. He tells them to not let their hearts become troubled. He has told them more than once that He is going to die, but then again, Christ also spoke about being born again. How literal are we talking here?

Christ is taken, tortured, and crucified. As they lay Him in the tomb, what are they thinking? They lovingly care for His body, but are they also a little angry? Are they in shock? Do they feel abandoned? Are they frustrated that He took them away from their lives and then left them to fend for themselves? The disciples are left to mourn their beloved leader, and they are also left to mourn the hopes and dreams they had placed upon Him. They are left to fear the future, and fear they do. Christ rises again, and it takes a while, but eventually they all come to see and believe and feel peace.

Now imagine if they had been able to have faith in Christ’s words.

Jesus is taken, tortured, and crucified. As they watch this come to pass, they are agonized over watching it, but they know what this is for. Even if they don’t fully grasp the fact that Christ needs to experience this suffering to complete the atonement, they know that He promised it would all work out. They lovingly take care of His body. There are still tears and disbelief, but the source is an overwhelming awe at what He sacrificed for them. There are whispers of gratitude instead of whispers of, “Why?” They are still saying, “I can’t believe this happened,” but it’s only because they can’t believe that He suffered in that manner for them; it’s only because they can’t believe they are truly free from Satan’s grasp.

And then there is a waiting period of three days. They know He’s coming back; He promised He would. No matter what they do, their minds are always drawn back to pondering what happened. And they wait.

With faith, they experienced the same events, but the events felt completely different. There were still tears, still agony. There was a lot of waiting, but the waiting had anticipation over fear.

When Christ teaches Thomas that, “blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed,” He’s not talking about raining down arbitrary blessings upon those who choose to believe in something they can’t see. He’s talking about the fact that Thomas could have saved himself a whole lot of pain if he had been able to find faith. He would have been blessed to pass over all of the agony of the past few days by knowing that it was all part of the plan and Christ would return.

So this is all fine and dandy when you feel faith. Forcing faith doesn’t bring peace; it’s when you feel faith. So how do we “feel” faith so that we can find peace?

Faith is an action word

Faith is an action word. It is an action word in the sense that we prepare for tomorrow by keeping the commandments today, but it’s also an action word in the sense that we are in control of our own thoughts.

Alma 34:31 Yea, I would that ye would come forth and harden not your hearts any longer; for behold, now is the time and the day of your salvation; and therefore, if ye will repent and harden not your hearts, immediately shall the great plan of redemption be brought about unto you.

I have been struck by this verse a number of times because of the line, “immediately shall the great plan of redemption be brought about unto you.” Immediately. If we can soften our hearts and repent, we will immediately experience the great plan of redemption.

What does it mean to experience the great plan of redemption? It can mean a lot of things, but the one I want to focus on today is the aspect of peace. Experiencing the great plan of redemption means experiencing the kind of peace that Christ promised.

So if we can repent and soften our hearts, we will experience the peace associated with the great plan of redemption. Let’s talk about repentance and softening our hearts separately.

Of course we will experience peace when we repent. Repentance is so much more than saying sorry for breaking a commandment. In my mind, repentance is any step towards becoming like Christ. This means we change into people who are calm, steady, joyful, and authentic. It means allowing ourselves to be healed; Christ didn’t need healing in the same manner, but if we want to be like Him, we need it. So yeah, repentance is going to bring peace.

But repenting and living the commandments won’t bring peace unless it’s combined with that soft heart, and having a soft heart is a conscious choice that we have to make.

Don’t harden your heart any longer. Don’t disbelieve that He adores you. Don’t disbelieve that He will make everything up to you. When something comes in and breaks your peace, actively fight it with a mantra that He loves you and will take care of absolutely everything. Note that I said, “mantra.” Maybe the idea that He loves you is not yet a knowledge, but if you want to find that knowledge, you might have to start with a mantra. When Satan comes in, you repeat to yourself how Christ loves you and will take care of it. Eventually that mantra will give way to hope, then faith, then growth of faith, then knowledge. And then bam, you feel peace. It simply comes.

I can personally testify of this. I lived the gospel my whole life with small glimpses of salvation and redemption and peace. But when my heart finally softened and believed, I started experiencing the feeling of salvation immediately and consistently. I started experiencing peace immediately and consistently.

I still have my moments. I still know what it is to feel hopeless, discouraged, weary, explosive. But I have been finding my way back to that peace more quickly or through thicker darkness.

The eternities after this earth life will not be perfect in the sense that the world thinks of as “perfect.” God still experiences sorrow. He still has to watch difficult things and make difficult decisions. But that is precisely why Christ offers a different kind of peace. If He offered us peace as defined by the world, we would find ourselves unprepared for the next life. We need the kind of peace He offers in order to find a peace that lasts an eternity.

I’m grateful for a Savior who sacrificed, and I’m grateful for this time of year to ponder His sacrifice. I know that He loves us endlessly and has the power to support us endlessly. When you find that knowledge and experience it again and again and again, you will find the peace you’re looking for.

 

Autumn Dickson was born and raised in a small town in Texas. She served a mission in the Indianapolis Indiana mission. She studied elementary education but has found a particular passion in teaching the gospel. Her desire for her content is to inspire people to feel confident, peaceful, and joyful about their relationship with Jesus Christ and to allow that relationship to touch every aspect of their lives.

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