The greatest rest is never determined by where I happen to be, but by the God that I’ve invited to be wherever I happen to be.

Maybe finding ‘peace of mind’ begins by realizing that ‘peace’ will never begin in my ‘mind.’ And if I spend my life paying such a thought ‘no mind,’ never-mind finding ‘peace.

We’re desperate for peace because it comes to us so rarely, and when it does, it seems to evaporate at the very moment that it draws near us. But that is peace based on circumstances that are as fleeting as the peace that comes with them, where the peace that comes with God makes everything else flee that draws near it.

I skipped a stone on the glass-like surface of a sleepy lake this morning. And I watched the ripples roll out from the stone’s impact until their energy abated and they fell smooth as was the rest of the lake. And as it become smooth again, I thought that one of the greatest things I could ask of God would be to grant me the gift of a soul with such inner calm that it would smooth out every ripple from every stone that Satan could ever throw into it.

There’s something demanding about the stillness of the night; as if it knows our need for rest and demands that we have it. And if I impale the stillness with the incessant noise and raucous clamor of a mind ever ill at rest and in doing so I refuse to let the night bring what it does, the night will remain still but my soul will not.

If the story of my life is about the storms that I have weathered, I will tell you that it is not the force of the storm that matters. What matters is that I had the privilege of the storm so that I might understand the power of the calm.

Patience compels me to adjust my stride to the cadence of life, not the pace of my greed.

My soul is utterly frantic for that single place of perfect refuge from which I can clearly see the winds rip and hear the tempest tear, yet despite the ferocity of the tumult I rest in such a sublime peace it is as if neither existed at all. And if I have not yet found such a place, it is because I have not yet found God.

Patience is where we choose to enjoy the view instead of run off the cliff.