You also need to allow the Spirit to stay your mind on the Father in the good things. Peace and praise go together. There's a renewed, fresh gift of peace in gratitude. Think about God's signature in the beauty of the natural world, the way God works out solutions to your needs, the wondrous gift of people He uses to help you, and the open doors of opportunity He sets before you. What a wonderful way to live!

Jesus knew this secret. He challenged His disciples -- and He challenges us -- to seek first the Kingdom of God. I like the way the New English Version of the Bible translates this verse, Matthew 6:33, "Set your mind on God's Kingdom -- before everything else!"

The Kingdom of God is His sovereignty in action, His reign and rule over everything. So, setting your mind on the Kingdom is the same thing as staying your mind on the rule of God. There is no peace apart from seeking to know and to do God's will. His guidance is not some mysterious set of sealed orders. We can discover far more of God's will from His commandments and from Jesus' life than most people readily acknowledge. Through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we are also given specific direction. I'm convinced that the Spirit does speak to our hearts; we are given "words of knowledge" about situations and people, and we can hear them if we listen attentively. A mind stayed on God -- set on the Kingdom -- is a mind with spiritual eyes to see and perceptive ears to hear.

A Heart Filled with Trust

This leads us to Isaiah's second secret for receiving the shalom, shalom, superlative peace of God. First, a mind stayed on God. And second, a heart filled with trust. The parallelism, "because he trusts in You," literally translates "because in You, trust is reposed." Faith, throughout the scripture, is a gift of the Spirit. It is not produced by us; it is received as an endowment from God. It is astounding to think about God's power to engender faith. God is so desirous of imparting His peace to us that He brings forth in us what He wants from us. He produces the stayed mind and the trust so that we don't miss out on His superlative peace!

The people of Judah trusted in human leaders and not in the Lord. They lost the Lord's peace as a result. Note the confession in verses 12 to 14: "Lord, You will establish peace for us, for You have also done all our works in us. O Lord our God, masters besides You have had dominion over us; but by You only we make mention of Your name. They are dead, they will not live; they are deceased, they will not rise."

Experiencing the peace which comes from personal knowledge of God's sovereignty requires putting trust in Him, not in leaders, friends, mates, or parents. We must trust God and love people and never turn that around. Of course, if we are to love God, we must put our ultimate trust in Him only. Peace is broken when we depend on people to provide what only God can provide. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths" (Prov. 3:5-6). People were never meant to be our sources of security. When we demand that they meet our needs, we make them diminutive gods; we take our stayed eyes off the Lord God and disconnect ourselves from the consistent flow of His peace.