Cultivating a Peaceful Disposition
Insecure individuals suffer from an inability to adapt themselves to a variety of life situations; they avoid anything and anyone unfamiliar to them. By nature, they are often combative as well, when people and situations don’t match their pre-conceived molds.
These personalities literally suspect and dislike a large number of the persons they must interact with. It starts with family, and extends to many others they cannot avoid in society, such as doctors, hairdressers, insurance agents, sales clerks, just to name very few.
Naturally, it is most reasonable that humans should be on guard, to avoid unnecessary intrusions from undesirable manipulators or unscrupulous agents of any kind. But living with suspicion of anyone or anything is more a mark of bondage than a display of the freedom and courage all human creatures can enjoy.
People should carefully choose their battles and fight each one to win. But being isolated from others, or displaying a resistant attitude all the time, will often lead to defeat far more than to genuine conquest! If we cut ourselves from others, we not only miss what others may have to offer us, but we also limit our influence, by depriving them from receiving what we are able to share!
St. Paul in Romans 12:18 urges his readers: “If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men.” One will hardly impact others if suspicious of them; neither will one receive the benefits those persons are capable of providing.
Most of our fears are imaginary, not real. Some people spend more time and energy engaging in fictitious warfare, instead of reserving all their resources to fight and win the real, tangible battles which will occasionally assail them. Avoid adding fuel to any fire, or starting unworthy conflicts.
A life lived in perpetual suspicion is a life half-lived; it is a form of imprisonment instead of “the liberty by which Christ has made us free” (Galatians 5:1); it is unhealthy fear rather than the recognition of Emmanuel’s reality - “God with us.” God’s redeemed are under His perpetual watch and loving care!
Humans are most free when under the grip of the all-powerful, sovereign God of the universe. As an old prayer-hymn entreats: “Make me a captive, Lord, and then I shall be free.” And Isaiah reassures God’s people of all ages, through his address to the Almighty: “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You” (26:3).
The child of God cultivates a peaceful disposition first with the Lord, giving one’s self the security needed to face people and the multiple situations life forces us into. Without Christ people live on a “minus” sign; but His cross is a “plus” sign, for a “plus” life, lived not in fear nor in defeat but “from victory unto victory”!
