Urban_Legend
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How to find inner piece?
- Thread starter yuppers
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fhansen
Oldbie
There will never be perfect peace in this world-including in ourselves. But what takes the edge off for me is knowing-trusting- that Something bigger than me is in control. "Be still and know that I am God". The more we know that the better. Then all the other things that we take so seriously-very often pride related when you get down to it-are seen to be not so big, not so important, not so critical to our happiness, not so impossible to face or overcome.
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What you wrote makes a lot of sense. I’ve pretty much come to the same conclusion myself. Maybe part of my problem is that I have a very anxious tendency. I do worry about my future and that I’ll be “stuck” in the circumstances I’m in right now for the foreseeable future. Overcoming my struggles is something that seems to be easier said then done. I have the head knowledge of the things you said and I know in my mind how things “should be” even in what I’m going through right now. The reality is that I usually get super bored and find that earthly things temporary “fulfill” me and keep me in that unhealthy cycle. My ultimate desire is to find my peace in God and be able to have a joy even in the tough times without sinning.
I pretty much just said my original question in a different way. I appreciate your reply though and I agree with the things you said in your post.
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I’m sure you meant well with that. A comment like that is like telling a person who’s thirst to go drink some water.
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S.O.J.I.A.
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what do you want? what do you need to do to get what you want? are you willing to do it?
don't let anyone tell you that you have to settle, just understand that nothing in life comes free and that you can do it!
don't let anyone tell you that you have to settle, just understand that nothing in life comes free and that you can do it!
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GraceBro
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The deepest desires of the human heart are for unconditional love, total acceptance, meaning and purpose to life. God gave us these needs. He also designed us in such a way that only He can meet those those needs through our relationship with Jesus Christ. Apart from this, the only option we have is to look to get these needs met in the world. The world can only offer inadequate substitutes which can only be received through some form of sin. No other person can meet those needs and we cannot meet the needs of others either. To find that inner peace, you have to start with having peace with God. That starts with understanding what your ultimate problem is and what God's provision is for that problem. Many will say that we are all sinners in need of forgiveness. While there is some truth in that, the ultimate problem between man and God is that we are spiritually dead, in our sins, and need the life of God restored to us. The inner peace will start to manifest itself when you start there. For more information, here is a blog I wrote on inner peace. 96toLife: Inner Peace
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aiki
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Marriage, money, and material possessions can improve a person's life but in what direction? I think that depends upon whether or not God is the Hub around which your life revolves. If He isn't, then these things can very easily and powerfully lure you away from Him and into a life of empty pursuits and deep dissatisfaction.
How did I become happy just with God? That's a strange question to me now. My knee-jerk response is to think: How could I not be happy with Him? Is He not the greatest thing in all of Creation? Yes, He is. Does He not sustain my existence moment-by-moment? Yes, He does. Has He not shown me incredible and utterly undeserved love, mercy and grace? Yes, He has. What reason, then, could I possibly have for not finding Him the eternal source of joy He promises to me He'll be.
I'm very reluctant to talk about God in terms of happiness. Happiness is almost entirely circumstance-dependent. Joy, though, is God-dependent and as such is not the vacillating thing happiness so often is. Joy endures even when circumstances are not at all happiness-inducing.
Our Happiness Is Not God's Ultimate Goal. | Christian Forums
I don't talk with God like I do my human friends. But we do communicate: me through prayer and worship and He through His word. God also convicts me of sin; He illuminates my understanding; He supplies for my needs; He comforts me in times of fear and distress; He strengthens me when I am weak, and so on. No, I can't sit with God at Starbuck's and sip a latte with Him and chat, but we still do relate to each other all the time.
It is when the things I listed are not true of my relationship with God that interacting with Him seems pointless and dissatisfying. But that's a problem on my end, not His. If I'll live as He directs me to, I'll find Him more fulfilling than anything else in life can be - even more than friends, and wealth, and a spouse.
Romans 12:1
1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
Matthew 16:24-25
24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
25 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.
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Jonathan Leo
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Yes agreed, and like the old saying goes, you can bring a horse to water, you can't make him drink it.
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Jonathan Leo
Well-Known Member
Well said, in marriage, God said we would have conflict and lots of it. Having God as your foundation in marriage makes you realise that most of these conflicts are either because of one being prideful, selfish or being angry etc etc. Having God allows such circumstances to build us up or in a way to kill our own sinful nature. In other words, having God as your foundation makes one lay down their lives for the other but sadly today marriage is more like what one can get out of it.
It's the same with everything else outside Gods ways, it has the tendency to destroy us. Take a guy who drives a new car for instance, the guy driving thinks he is better than the guy who has a banger, and that guy is jealous because he don't have a new car. Where as if you have God you realise that both of ye have cars.
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Jonathan Leo
Well-Known Member
Nice post, worldly desires we use to try and fix our spirit from outside in, God gives us peace and joy and it shines from inside out.
Inner peace can only be found in your spirit. When your spirit agrees with the Holy Spirit, you are spiritually alive again. This is pure joy and peaceful. This is the only way for true inner peace. To be born of the spirit again.
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Soyeong
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I suggest a scalpel for finding inner piece, but is all seriousness, having a good sense of humor is no doubt part of it. I suggest volunteering as a good way increase your interactions with others, to help them, and to make the world a better place.
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I was brought up in the military and ended up in Michigan as an atheist teenager. I remember smoking a cigarette and overlooking the ice cold tundra wondering how on earth there could be a creator. I also had no peaceWhen I was 17 and living with my grandmother here in Virginia I would wash dishes during the morning at a restaurant, put up hay in the afternoon, and go to revival during the evening. One night after revival I felt the Spirit of God speaking to my heart. There on my bed, with the katydids singing their night songs, I felt the Spirit of God come in and commune with me with great peace and spiritual experience.
My conversion is the same as GC Rankin before me. The difference being....
I started out Baptist, GC Rankin Presbyterian
I would work the hay field, GC Rankin the cottonfield
I would receive this in a Pentecostal Holiness church, GC Rankin Methodist
I came down with cigarettes, GC Rankin with a pistol of large make!
All in exact methods of GC Rankin 100 years before me!
We both were "tortured" (to use Rankin's very words) with religion, and then liberated by it.
"Grandfather was kind to me and considerate of me, yet he was strict with me. I worked along with him in the field when the weather was agreeable and when it was inclement I helped him in his hatter's shop, for the Civil War was in progress and he had returned at odd times to hatmaking. It was my business in the shop to stretch foxskins and coonskins across a wood-horse and with a knife, made for that purpose, pluck the hair from the fur. I despise the odor of foxskins and coonskins to this good day. He had me to walk two miles every Sunday to Dandridge to Church service and Sunday-school, rain or shine, wet or dry, cold or hot; yet he had fat horses standing in his stable. But he was such a blue-stocking Presbyterian that he never allowed a bridle to go on a horse's head on Sunday. The beasts had to have a day of rest. Old Doctor Minnis was the pastor, and he was the dryest and most interminable preacher I ever heard in my life. He would stand motionless and read his sermons from manuscript for one hour and a half at a time and sometimes longer. Grandfather would sit and never take his eyes off of him, except to glance at me to keep me quiet. It was torture to me." - George Clark Rankin
George Clark Rankin was then sent to Georgia after his grandfather could no longer care for him. With his belongings in a satchel he had a Colt's navy pistol of a large make. It was an old weapon, and what under the sun I wanted with it is a mystery to me to this good day. I reached the station in time to catch the eleven-o' clock train. I purchased my ticket and boarded the car for the first time in my life. I had one lone lorn fifty-cent piece left in my depleted purse, and that was the sum and substance of my finances for the rest of the trip. As the train whizzed along I looked first at the people and then through the window at the country and thought over my journey and what was to come of it. At nine o'clock we reached Dalton and disembarked. I had never been in a hotel. I saw one not far from the depot and went to it. I asked the clerk what he would charge me for a room that night and he said fifty cents. That was exactly my pile! I called for the accommodation, but before retiring I told him I wanted to leave very early the next morning for Spring Place and that I would pay him then, for no one would be up when I would leave. He smiled and took the silver half dollar. I went to my room, and solitude is no name for the room I occupied that night. After a while I fell into a sound sleep and awoke bright and early the next morning. It was not good daylight. I arose and hastened downstairs, and there sat the same clerk whom I had the night before it had never dawned on me that a hotel clerk sat up all night. I thanked him for his kindness and bade him good-bye in regular old country style.
It was not long until I was in the road and making tracks across the country to where my uncle lived. It was in 1866 and the marks of Sherman's march to the sea were everywhere visible. The country was very much out of repair and all around Dalton the earth was marked with breastworks. Every hill showed signs of war. Much of the fencing had not been restored and here and there I could see blackened chimneys still standing. After I had gotten out a few miles I stopped and took that old pistol with its belt and scabbard out of my satchel and buckled the war paraphernalia around my person on the outside of my coat. Just why I did this I cannot explain. I must have looked a caution in my homespun suit and rural air trudging along that highway with that old army pistol fastened around me. In going down a hill toward a ravine from which there was another hill in front of me I met two men horseback. They spoke to me and eyed me very curiously, but, strange to say, I could not tell why. Why would not men eye such a looking war arsenal as that? There were two others riding down the hill in front of me, and as the first two passed me they stopped and looked back at the others and shouted: "Lookout, boys, he is loaded!"
In the course of an hour I was at my uncle's. He was surprised to see me, but gave me a cordial welcome. The first thing he did was to disarm me, and that ended my pistol-toting. I have never had one about my person or home to this good day. And I never will understand just why I had that one. A good dinner refreshed me and I soon unfolded my plans and they were satisfactory to my kind-hearted kinsman. He was in the midst of cotton-picking and that afternoon I went to the field and, with a long sack about my waist, had my first experience in the cottonfield. We then would get ready for the revival occurring that night…
After the team had been fed and we had been to supper we put the mules to the wagon, filled it with chairs and we were off to the meeting. When we reached the locality it was about dark and the people were assembling. Their horses and wagons filled up the cleared spaces and the singing was already in progress. My uncle and his family went well up toward the front, but I dropped into a seat well to the rear. It was an old-fashioned Church, ancient in appearance, oblong in shape and unpretentious. It was situated in a grove about one hundred yards from the road. It was lighted with old tallow-dip candles furnished by the neighbors. It was not a prepossessing-looking place, but it was soon crowded and evidently there was a great deal of interest. A cadaverous-looking man stood up in front with a tuning fork and raised and led the songs. There were a few prayers and the minister came in with his saddlebags and entered the pulpit. He was the Rev. W. H. Heath, the circuit rider. His prayer impressed me with his earnestness and there were many amens to it in the audience. I do not remember his text, but it was a typical revival sermon, full of unction and power.
At its close he invited penitents to the altar and a great many young people flocked to it and bowed for prayer. Many of them became very much affected and they cried out distressingly for mercy. It had a strange effect on me. It made me nervous and I wanted to retire. Directly my uncle came back to me, put his arm around my shoulder and asked me if I did not want to be religious. I told him that I had always had that desire, that mother had brought me up that way, and really I did not know anything else. Then he wanted to know if I had ever professed religion. I hardly understood what he meant and did not answer him. He changed his question and asked me if I had ever been to the altar for prayer, and I answered him in the negative. Then he earnestly besought me to let him take me up to the altar and join the others in being prayed for. It really embarrassed me and I hardly knew what to say to him. He spoke to me of my mother and said that when she was a little girl she went to the altar and that Christ accepted her and she had been a good Christian all these years. That touched me in a tender spot, for mother always did do what was right; and then I was far away from her and wanted to see her. Oh, if she were there to tell me what to do!
By and by I yielded to his entreaty and he led forward to the altar. The minister took me by the hand and spoke tenderly to me as I knelt at the altar. I had gone more out of sympathy than conviction, and I did not know what to do after I bowed there. The others were praying aloud and now and then one would rise shoutingly happy and make the old building ring with his glad praise. It was a novel experience to me. I did not know what to pray for, neither did I know what to expect if I did pray. I spent the most of the hour wondering why I was there and what it all meant. No one explained anything to me. Once in awhile some good old brother or sister would pass my way, strike me on the back and tell me to look up and believe and the blessing would come. But that was not encouraging to me. In fact, it sounded like nonsense and the noise was distracting me. Even in my crude way of thinking I had an idea that religion was a sensible thing and that people ought to become religious intelligently and without all that hurrah. I presume that my ideas were the result of the Presbyterian training given to me by old grandfather. By and by my knees grew tired and the skin was nearly rubbed off my elbows. I thought the service never would close, and when it did conclude with the benediction I heaved a sigh of relief. That was my first experience at the mourner's bench.
As we drove home I did not have much to say, but I listened attentively to the conversation between my uncle and his wife. They were greatly impressed with the meeting, and they spoke first of this one and that one who had "come through" and what a change it would make in the community, as many of them were bad boys. As we were putting up the team my uncle spoke very encouragingly to me; he was delighted with the step I had taken and he pleaded with me not to turn back, but to press on until I found the pearl of great price. He knew my mother would be very happy over the start I had made. Before going to sleep I fell into a train of thought, though I was tired and exhausted. I wondered why I had gone to that altar and what I had gained by it. I felt no special conviction and had received no special impression, but then if my mother had started that way there must be something in it, for she always did what was right. I silently lifted my heart to God in prayer for conviction and guidance. I knew how to pray, for I had come up through prayer, but not the mourner's bench sort. So I determined to continue to attend the meeting and keep on going to the altar until I got religion.
Early the next morning I was up and in a serious frame of mind. I went with the other hands to the cottonfield and at noon I slipped off in the barn and prayed. But the more I thought of the way those young people were moved in the meeting and with what glad hearts they had shouted their praises to God the more it puzzled and confused me. I could not feel the conviction that they had and my heart did not feel melted and tender. I was callous and unmoved in feeling and my distress on account of sin was nothing like theirs. I did not understand my own state of mind and heart. It troubled me, for by this time I really wanted to have an experience like theirs.
When evening came I was ready for Church service and was glad to go. It required no urging. Another large crowd was present and the preacher was as earnest as ever. I did not give much heed to the sermon. In fact, I do not recall a word of it. I was anxious for him to conclude and give me a chance to go to the altar. I had gotten it into my head that there was some real virtue in the mourner's bench; and when the time came I was one of the first to prostrate myself before the altar in prayer. Many others did likewise. Two or three good people at intervals knelt by me and spoke encouragingly to me, but they did not help me. Their talks were mere exhortations to earnestness and faith, but there was no explanation of faith, neither was there any light thrown upon my mind and heart. I wrought myself up into tears and cries for help, but the whole situation was dark and I hardly knew why I cried, or what was the trouble with me. Now and then others would arise from the altar in an ecstasy of joy, but there was no joy for me. When the service closed I was discouraged and felt that maybe I was too hardhearted and the good Spirit could do nothing for me.
After we went home I tossed on the bed before going to sleep and wondered why God did not do for me what he had done for mother and what he was doing in that meeting for those young people at the altar. I could not understand it. But I resolved to keep on trying, and so dropped off to sleep. The next day I had about the same experience and at night saw no change in my condition. And so for several nights I repeated the same distressing experience. The meeting took on such interest that a day service was adopted along with the night exercises, and we attended that also. And one morning while I bowed at the altar in a very disturbed state of mind Brother Tyson, a good local preacher and the father of Rev. J. F. Tyson, now of the Central Conference, sat down by me and, putting his hand on my shoulder, said to me: "Now I want you to sit up awhile and let's talk this matter over quietly. I am sure that you are in earnest, for you have been coming to this altar night after night for several days. I want to ask you a few simple questions." And the following questions were asked and answered:
"My son, do you not love God?"
"I cannot remember when I did not love him."
"Do you believe on his Son, Jesus Christ?"
"I have always believed on Christ. My mother taught me that from my earliest recollection."
"Do you accept him as your Savior?"
"I certainly do, and have always done so."
"Can you think of any sin that is between you and the Savior?"
"No, sir; for I have never committed any bad sins."
"Do you love everybody?"
"Well, I love nearly everybody, but I have no ill-will toward any one. An old man did me a wrong not long ago and I acted ugly toward him, but I do not care to injure him."
"Can you forgive him?"
"Yes, if he wanted me to."
"But, down in your heart, can you wish him well?"
"Yes, sir; I can do that."
"Well, now let me say to you that if you love God, if you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior from sin and if you love your fellowmen and intend by God's help to lead a religious life, that's all there is to religion. In fact, that is all I know about it."
Then he repeated several passages of Scriptures to me proving his assertions. I thought a moment and said to him: "But I do not feel like these young people who have been getting religion night after night. I cannot get happy like them. I do not feel like shouting."
The good man looked at me and smiled and said: "Ah, that's your trouble. You have been trying to feel like them. Now you are not them; you are yourself. You have your own quiet disposition and you are not turned like them. They are excitable and blustery like they are. They give way to their feelings. That's all right, but feeling is not religion. Religion is faith and life. If you have violent feeling with it, all good and well, but if you have faith and not much feeling, why the feeling will take care of itself. To love God and accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, turning away from all sin, and living a godly life, is the substance of true religion."
That was new to me, yet it had been my state of mind from childhood. For I remembered that away back in my early life, when the old preacher held services in my grandmother's house one day and opened the door of the Church, I went forward and gave him my hand. He was to receive me into full membership at the end of six months' probation, but he let it pass out of his mind and failed to attend to it.
As I sat there that morning listening to the earnest exhortation of the good man my tears ceased, my distress left me, light broke in upon my mind, my heart grew joyous, and before I knew just what I was doing I was going all around shaking hands with everybody, and my confusion and darkness disappeared and a great burden rolled off my spirit. I felt exactly like I did when I was a little boy around my mother's knee when she told of Jesus and God and Heaven. It made my heart thrill then, and the same old experience returned to me in that old country Church that beautiful September morning down in old North Georgia.
As we returned home the sun shone brighter, the birds sang sweeter and the autumn-time looked richer than ever before. My heart was light and my spirit buoyant. I had anchored my soul in the haven of rest, and there was not a ripple upon the current of my joy. That night there was no service and after supper I walked out under the great old pine trees and held communion with God. I thought of mother, and home, and Heaven.
I at once gave my name to the preacher for membership in the Church, and the following Sunday morning, along with many others, he received me into full membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. It was one of the most delightful days in my recollection. It was the third Sunday in September, 1866, and those Church vows became a living principle in my heart and life. During these forty-five long years, with their alternations of sunshine and shadow, daylight and darkness, success and failure, rejoicing and weeping, fears within and fightings without, I have never ceased to thank God for that autumnal day in the long ago when my name was registered in the Lamb's Book of Life.
My conversion is the same as GC Rankin before me. The difference being....
I started out Baptist, GC Rankin Presbyterian
I would work the hay field, GC Rankin the cottonfield
I would receive this in a Pentecostal Holiness church, GC Rankin Methodist
I came down with cigarettes, GC Rankin with a pistol of large make!
All in exact methods of GC Rankin 100 years before me!
We both were "tortured" (to use Rankin's very words) with religion, and then liberated by it.
"Grandfather was kind to me and considerate of me, yet he was strict with me. I worked along with him in the field when the weather was agreeable and when it was inclement I helped him in his hatter's shop, for the Civil War was in progress and he had returned at odd times to hatmaking. It was my business in the shop to stretch foxskins and coonskins across a wood-horse and with a knife, made for that purpose, pluck the hair from the fur. I despise the odor of foxskins and coonskins to this good day. He had me to walk two miles every Sunday to Dandridge to Church service and Sunday-school, rain or shine, wet or dry, cold or hot; yet he had fat horses standing in his stable. But he was such a blue-stocking Presbyterian that he never allowed a bridle to go on a horse's head on Sunday. The beasts had to have a day of rest. Old Doctor Minnis was the pastor, and he was the dryest and most interminable preacher I ever heard in my life. He would stand motionless and read his sermons from manuscript for one hour and a half at a time and sometimes longer. Grandfather would sit and never take his eyes off of him, except to glance at me to keep me quiet. It was torture to me." - George Clark Rankin
George Clark Rankin was then sent to Georgia after his grandfather could no longer care for him. With his belongings in a satchel he had a Colt's navy pistol of a large make. It was an old weapon, and what under the sun I wanted with it is a mystery to me to this good day. I reached the station in time to catch the eleven-o' clock train. I purchased my ticket and boarded the car for the first time in my life. I had one lone lorn fifty-cent piece left in my depleted purse, and that was the sum and substance of my finances for the rest of the trip. As the train whizzed along I looked first at the people and then through the window at the country and thought over my journey and what was to come of it. At nine o'clock we reached Dalton and disembarked. I had never been in a hotel. I saw one not far from the depot and went to it. I asked the clerk what he would charge me for a room that night and he said fifty cents. That was exactly my pile! I called for the accommodation, but before retiring I told him I wanted to leave very early the next morning for Spring Place and that I would pay him then, for no one would be up when I would leave. He smiled and took the silver half dollar. I went to my room, and solitude is no name for the room I occupied that night. After a while I fell into a sound sleep and awoke bright and early the next morning. It was not good daylight. I arose and hastened downstairs, and there sat the same clerk whom I had the night before it had never dawned on me that a hotel clerk sat up all night. I thanked him for his kindness and bade him good-bye in regular old country style.
It was not long until I was in the road and making tracks across the country to where my uncle lived. It was in 1866 and the marks of Sherman's march to the sea were everywhere visible. The country was very much out of repair and all around Dalton the earth was marked with breastworks. Every hill showed signs of war. Much of the fencing had not been restored and here and there I could see blackened chimneys still standing. After I had gotten out a few miles I stopped and took that old pistol with its belt and scabbard out of my satchel and buckled the war paraphernalia around my person on the outside of my coat. Just why I did this I cannot explain. I must have looked a caution in my homespun suit and rural air trudging along that highway with that old army pistol fastened around me. In going down a hill toward a ravine from which there was another hill in front of me I met two men horseback. They spoke to me and eyed me very curiously, but, strange to say, I could not tell why. Why would not men eye such a looking war arsenal as that? There were two others riding down the hill in front of me, and as the first two passed me they stopped and looked back at the others and shouted: "Lookout, boys, he is loaded!"
In the course of an hour I was at my uncle's. He was surprised to see me, but gave me a cordial welcome. The first thing he did was to disarm me, and that ended my pistol-toting. I have never had one about my person or home to this good day. And I never will understand just why I had that one. A good dinner refreshed me and I soon unfolded my plans and they were satisfactory to my kind-hearted kinsman. He was in the midst of cotton-picking and that afternoon I went to the field and, with a long sack about my waist, had my first experience in the cottonfield. We then would get ready for the revival occurring that night…
After the team had been fed and we had been to supper we put the mules to the wagon, filled it with chairs and we were off to the meeting. When we reached the locality it was about dark and the people were assembling. Their horses and wagons filled up the cleared spaces and the singing was already in progress. My uncle and his family went well up toward the front, but I dropped into a seat well to the rear. It was an old-fashioned Church, ancient in appearance, oblong in shape and unpretentious. It was situated in a grove about one hundred yards from the road. It was lighted with old tallow-dip candles furnished by the neighbors. It was not a prepossessing-looking place, but it was soon crowded and evidently there was a great deal of interest. A cadaverous-looking man stood up in front with a tuning fork and raised and led the songs. There were a few prayers and the minister came in with his saddlebags and entered the pulpit. He was the Rev. W. H. Heath, the circuit rider. His prayer impressed me with his earnestness and there were many amens to it in the audience. I do not remember his text, but it was a typical revival sermon, full of unction and power.
At its close he invited penitents to the altar and a great many young people flocked to it and bowed for prayer. Many of them became very much affected and they cried out distressingly for mercy. It had a strange effect on me. It made me nervous and I wanted to retire. Directly my uncle came back to me, put his arm around my shoulder and asked me if I did not want to be religious. I told him that I had always had that desire, that mother had brought me up that way, and really I did not know anything else. Then he wanted to know if I had ever professed religion. I hardly understood what he meant and did not answer him. He changed his question and asked me if I had ever been to the altar for prayer, and I answered him in the negative. Then he earnestly besought me to let him take me up to the altar and join the others in being prayed for. It really embarrassed me and I hardly knew what to say to him. He spoke to me of my mother and said that when she was a little girl she went to the altar and that Christ accepted her and she had been a good Christian all these years. That touched me in a tender spot, for mother always did do what was right; and then I was far away from her and wanted to see her. Oh, if she were there to tell me what to do!
By and by I yielded to his entreaty and he led forward to the altar. The minister took me by the hand and spoke tenderly to me as I knelt at the altar. I had gone more out of sympathy than conviction, and I did not know what to do after I bowed there. The others were praying aloud and now and then one would rise shoutingly happy and make the old building ring with his glad praise. It was a novel experience to me. I did not know what to pray for, neither did I know what to expect if I did pray. I spent the most of the hour wondering why I was there and what it all meant. No one explained anything to me. Once in awhile some good old brother or sister would pass my way, strike me on the back and tell me to look up and believe and the blessing would come. But that was not encouraging to me. In fact, it sounded like nonsense and the noise was distracting me. Even in my crude way of thinking I had an idea that religion was a sensible thing and that people ought to become religious intelligently and without all that hurrah. I presume that my ideas were the result of the Presbyterian training given to me by old grandfather. By and by my knees grew tired and the skin was nearly rubbed off my elbows. I thought the service never would close, and when it did conclude with the benediction I heaved a sigh of relief. That was my first experience at the mourner's bench.
As we drove home I did not have much to say, but I listened attentively to the conversation between my uncle and his wife. They were greatly impressed with the meeting, and they spoke first of this one and that one who had "come through" and what a change it would make in the community, as many of them were bad boys. As we were putting up the team my uncle spoke very encouragingly to me; he was delighted with the step I had taken and he pleaded with me not to turn back, but to press on until I found the pearl of great price. He knew my mother would be very happy over the start I had made. Before going to sleep I fell into a train of thought, though I was tired and exhausted. I wondered why I had gone to that altar and what I had gained by it. I felt no special conviction and had received no special impression, but then if my mother had started that way there must be something in it, for she always did what was right. I silently lifted my heart to God in prayer for conviction and guidance. I knew how to pray, for I had come up through prayer, but not the mourner's bench sort. So I determined to continue to attend the meeting and keep on going to the altar until I got religion.
Early the next morning I was up and in a serious frame of mind. I went with the other hands to the cottonfield and at noon I slipped off in the barn and prayed. But the more I thought of the way those young people were moved in the meeting and with what glad hearts they had shouted their praises to God the more it puzzled and confused me. I could not feel the conviction that they had and my heart did not feel melted and tender. I was callous and unmoved in feeling and my distress on account of sin was nothing like theirs. I did not understand my own state of mind and heart. It troubled me, for by this time I really wanted to have an experience like theirs.
When evening came I was ready for Church service and was glad to go. It required no urging. Another large crowd was present and the preacher was as earnest as ever. I did not give much heed to the sermon. In fact, I do not recall a word of it. I was anxious for him to conclude and give me a chance to go to the altar. I had gotten it into my head that there was some real virtue in the mourner's bench; and when the time came I was one of the first to prostrate myself before the altar in prayer. Many others did likewise. Two or three good people at intervals knelt by me and spoke encouragingly to me, but they did not help me. Their talks were mere exhortations to earnestness and faith, but there was no explanation of faith, neither was there any light thrown upon my mind and heart. I wrought myself up into tears and cries for help, but the whole situation was dark and I hardly knew why I cried, or what was the trouble with me. Now and then others would arise from the altar in an ecstasy of joy, but there was no joy for me. When the service closed I was discouraged and felt that maybe I was too hardhearted and the good Spirit could do nothing for me.
After we went home I tossed on the bed before going to sleep and wondered why God did not do for me what he had done for mother and what he was doing in that meeting for those young people at the altar. I could not understand it. But I resolved to keep on trying, and so dropped off to sleep. The next day I had about the same experience and at night saw no change in my condition. And so for several nights I repeated the same distressing experience. The meeting took on such interest that a day service was adopted along with the night exercises, and we attended that also. And one morning while I bowed at the altar in a very disturbed state of mind Brother Tyson, a good local preacher and the father of Rev. J. F. Tyson, now of the Central Conference, sat down by me and, putting his hand on my shoulder, said to me: "Now I want you to sit up awhile and let's talk this matter over quietly. I am sure that you are in earnest, for you have been coming to this altar night after night for several days. I want to ask you a few simple questions." And the following questions were asked and answered:
"My son, do you not love God?"
"I cannot remember when I did not love him."
"Do you believe on his Son, Jesus Christ?"
"I have always believed on Christ. My mother taught me that from my earliest recollection."
"Do you accept him as your Savior?"
"I certainly do, and have always done so."
"Can you think of any sin that is between you and the Savior?"
"No, sir; for I have never committed any bad sins."
"Do you love everybody?"
"Well, I love nearly everybody, but I have no ill-will toward any one. An old man did me a wrong not long ago and I acted ugly toward him, but I do not care to injure him."
"Can you forgive him?"
"Yes, if he wanted me to."
"But, down in your heart, can you wish him well?"
"Yes, sir; I can do that."
"Well, now let me say to you that if you love God, if you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior from sin and if you love your fellowmen and intend by God's help to lead a religious life, that's all there is to religion. In fact, that is all I know about it."
Then he repeated several passages of Scriptures to me proving his assertions. I thought a moment and said to him: "But I do not feel like these young people who have been getting religion night after night. I cannot get happy like them. I do not feel like shouting."
The good man looked at me and smiled and said: "Ah, that's your trouble. You have been trying to feel like them. Now you are not them; you are yourself. You have your own quiet disposition and you are not turned like them. They are excitable and blustery like they are. They give way to their feelings. That's all right, but feeling is not religion. Religion is faith and life. If you have violent feeling with it, all good and well, but if you have faith and not much feeling, why the feeling will take care of itself. To love God and accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, turning away from all sin, and living a godly life, is the substance of true religion."
That was new to me, yet it had been my state of mind from childhood. For I remembered that away back in my early life, when the old preacher held services in my grandmother's house one day and opened the door of the Church, I went forward and gave him my hand. He was to receive me into full membership at the end of six months' probation, but he let it pass out of his mind and failed to attend to it.
As I sat there that morning listening to the earnest exhortation of the good man my tears ceased, my distress left me, light broke in upon my mind, my heart grew joyous, and before I knew just what I was doing I was going all around shaking hands with everybody, and my confusion and darkness disappeared and a great burden rolled off my spirit. I felt exactly like I did when I was a little boy around my mother's knee when she told of Jesus and God and Heaven. It made my heart thrill then, and the same old experience returned to me in that old country Church that beautiful September morning down in old North Georgia.
As we returned home the sun shone brighter, the birds sang sweeter and the autumn-time looked richer than ever before. My heart was light and my spirit buoyant. I had anchored my soul in the haven of rest, and there was not a ripple upon the current of my joy. That night there was no service and after supper I walked out under the great old pine trees and held communion with God. I thought of mother, and home, and Heaven.
I at once gave my name to the preacher for membership in the Church, and the following Sunday morning, along with many others, he received me into full membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. It was one of the most delightful days in my recollection. It was the third Sunday in September, 1866, and those Church vows became a living principle in my heart and life. During these forty-five long years, with their alternations of sunshine and shadow, daylight and darkness, success and failure, rejoicing and weeping, fears within and fightings without, I have never ceased to thank God for that autumnal day in the long ago when my name was registered in the Lamb's Book of Life.
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gym_class_hero
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Merry Christmas Yuppers. Are you volunteering anywhere? Finding a good ministry to volunteer at may help you. It will give you other people to talk to and associate with and you may find good Christian friends. God bless you
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- Nov 29, 2017
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Inner peace can be obtained and kept but it takes work on our behalf to do so. As mentioned, study Gods word intently. Knowing what is absolute truth will let us know when we are confronted with errors and lies. Secondly we need to get rid of excess baggage and keep ourselves from taking on "new" baggage that hinders our walk with God and our service to others. This is what I use: Helps to emotional stability
We also need to do a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves to rid ourselves of resentments, unhealthy fears and sinful behavior in our lives.
We also need to do a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves to rid ourselves of resentments, unhealthy fears and sinful behavior in our lives.
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devin553344
I believe in the Resurrection
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First off inner peace can only be sought by people who isolate or isolate with peaceful people. This works good for monks but in the practical world is impossible to maintain inner peace.
Inner peace starts with mourning for losses in life, the grieving process works. The grieving process is something you can look up on the internet if you haven't the knowledge already.
Joy is much better than inner peace for calming your heart and comes from serving your brothers and sisters in Jesus the Christ.
My advice to you is to find a social circle and get in and be part of it. Church is the first idea but there are many groups of people and circles you can be part of. Like family too
The important thing here for the inner turmoil is to learn stress reduction techniques. One might be going for walks or exercising in some other way. Being around others that are peaceful is another way to relieve stress. At least for me it works.
Don't focus on your feelings unless you're trying to identify troubles in your life that need to be resolved. Your feelings will betray you and cause you to amplify turmoil.
So there's two concepts, one is meditating on your thoughts and feelings, but when they turn into the troubles themselves they have a run away affect. Fear of fear is panic and anxiety and can run away out of control. Anger of being angry is not healthy either. In those cases just ignore your feelings unless you're going to address an issue in your life. Ignoring them and moving on with life can, in time, lead to a better life.
In other words, if you think about your feelings then you can have feelings about your feelings, and that can spiral out of control if you let it.
Does that make sense? God Bless.
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There can be no peace without the Prince of peace. His peace passing all understanding. He is the reason for the season. His name is Jesus. May He grant you His peace.
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- Jun 13, 2015
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Peace and contentment comes when you genuinely believe that God has his best interest for you and is intimately aware of all of your life. The bottom line is your trust in Jesus. When you don't trust him, you are discontent and anxious. Contentment means accepting your lot in life, not that God is the author of your lot, rather that God is working with the lot you have. All things work for good for those who love the Lord and are called according to his purpose. We make our choices which bring consequences. Also, forces work upon us that are not our choices. Either way, you have to trust that God knows all these things in your life and is still working on your behalf - not to fulfill what you think is your desire - but to fulfill what God created you for.
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- Mar 24, 2011
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You need to learn a new way of doing things. That new way would be going to God with your discontentment and finding satisfaction there, instead of with sinning. The scripture has real answers about how to deal with our problems, and they all involve our relationship with the Lord. Do you feel like you have a relationship with the Lord?
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Rescued One
...yet not I, but the grace of God that is with me
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The only way that I can think of, besides absolute faith in God, is to do things for others.
Galatians 5 NIV
13You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. 14For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
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