A few years ago, I was flying to Detroit to speak in a church, but my flight went to Dallas where we changed planes. While we were taxiing onto the runway, the pilot told us to look out the right side of the plane, where we saw a Concorde jet about to take off for Paris.

Our pilot told us that in the same amount of time it would take us to fly to Detroit, the Concorde, traveling three times the speed of our plane, could fly all the way to Paris.

As we flew on to Detroit, I could not get the Concorde off my mind. “Why won’t our government allow us to build a supersonic jet?” I asked myself. “Why should the French have an edge over us? After all, we invented the airplane! Why can’t this plane go faster?”

The farther we flew the angrier I became.

Then the Lord asked me something I will never forget: “What are you going to do, get out and push?” I had to laugh! All of my frustration did not change a thing, so I might as well just sit back and enjoy the ride!

In the same way, we can get frustrated when God does not seem to be answering our prayers or accomplishing His will in our lives as quickly as we think He should. How often do we want to “get out and push” to help the plan of God? But all our efforts simply do not help the matter at all. We might as well rest and enjoy the ride.

In II Thessalonians 1:7, Paul gave these instructions: “And to you who are troubled rest with us.” In this verse, the word “rest” is in the imperative mood, which means it is a command. A command implies we have a choice in the matter: we can obey or disobey.

If we are commanded to rest, then rest is a choice. We can choose to rest. After all, didn’t we yield to the pressure and choose to worry? We could have yielded to the urging of the Word of God and the Holy Spirit and chosen to rest in God’s plan for our lives.

Kept in Perfect Peace

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee. (Isaiah 26:3)

Perfect peace is promised to those who will keep their mind stayed on the Lord. Rest and peace are choices.

We must choose to keep our minds stayed on the promises of God to have the reward of peace and serenity.

Bob Yandian

Copyright 2009 by Bob Yandian Ministries.
Reproduction of this material in whole or part in any format without written permission is prohibited. All Rights Reserved.