Do you have peace? If so, where do you find it? With friends or family? Maybe you find it in your work, or in your schooling. Wherever you find it, I’m sure you absolutely wish you had that feeling all day, every day.

Peace is practically a commodity these days. Not many experiences it, and if they do, it’s so rare that the feeling feels unorthodox and even unsettling. It’s heartbreaking how rare true peace is; however, it doesn’t have to stay that way.

Once upon a time peace was common, and we experienced it daily. Whenever we went home, we had peace. We were able to rest and sit, not having to worry about much. We could sit and dwell in a sense of peace.

Now, we must work to find our dwelling place, where we must sit, and rest. In this way, we can have that sense of peace that we all long for.

Where Did the Peace Go?

It’s becoming increasingly obvious that the younger generations of the world are riddled with depression, anxiety, suicide, and more. This problem is only getting worse, with the trend of depression and anxiety amongst these generations only getting higher.

The Anxiety & Depression Association of America (ADAA) has claimed that an “estimated 4.1 million adolescents aged 12 to 17 in the United States” had a major bout with depression. That’s a heartbreaking statistic. Many teens and even adults are not getting the treatment they need either, with “60% of adolescents” not receiving treatment and “39% of adults” (ADAA). That’s hard to hear.

It’s clear that this is a major problem, so why has nothing been done? Even more, why has it become a problem in the first place?

I can’t speak for everybody, but I had a serious problem with depression and anxiety too, and I’ve since been healed from it. There were a few reasons why I felt the way that I did.

The first reason was that my thoughts were completely out of whack. I hadn’t taken control of my thoughts and really made myself think on what was good. My thoughts were absolutely not placed on what was true, honorable, or acceptable.

The next reason was that I worried about everything. Consequently, the thoughts that I had were going to be placed on all the bad things in life. Not all the good that I could think of.

The third reason was that I felt lonely. Because my thoughts were off, and I worried, I let myself forget everything that I knew about scripture. Unfortunately, I had completely forgotten that Jesus is my friend and will never leave me.

There was one thing that I did in order to change that and have peace.

The Dwelling Place

As shown by the statistics, most people don’t have a good dwelling place. They have a home. Maybe an apartment, maybe a house. They have somewhere they can run off to when they get in trouble. Maybe a friend’s house, maybe theirs. However, they don’t have a real, authentically, good dwelling place.

Most would define a dwelling place as a home, place of residence, or something of those sorts. Whether that be an apartment, house, mansion, RV, whatever it is. But many people don’t really feel at home at home. They don’t feel a sense of peace, like they can truly sit and rest.

A dwelling place isn’t just a place where you dwell, but it is also where your mind and thoughts can go to dwell. If what you continually retreat back to in your mind is bad thoughts, which was the case for me, you will live in those bad thoughts. You will feed and find rest in those bad thoughts.

Something that I believe would change everyone’s life, is to find a dwelling place. A place where you can go and sit in peace. Where you can rest and get away from all your worries. A place in your mind where you can throw your worries and cares out of the window, and you can truly rest in.

This was what really helped me. Finding a really great dwelling place, that I could rest in, with Jesus. It changed everything for me. It’s all biblical too!

Psalms 91

If there are any verses that the majority of Christians can quote, it’s John 3:16, Philippians 4:13, and Psalm 91. While there’s a time and a place for every verse, I find Psalm 91 to be powerful in almost everything we do.

I won’t quote the entire chapter here, but there are a few sections that we really need to look at and try to dissect.

He Who Dwells

The first section is the first couple verses in the chapter.

“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress,
my God, in whom I trust.””

The first thing that I’m sure you noticed about this verse is dwells. We have been discussing the dwelling place, and this verse shows us exactly what that should be to us. Our dwelling place should be under the shelter of the Most High, our king, Jesus.

The next part of this verse shows us that he who dwells with Jesus, will abide in the shadow of God. This is such a powerful verse and gives us great insight on how we are to dwell with Jesus.

In this context, the word abide means “to stop” or “to stay permanently”, meaning that we don’t just visit this place in our relationships with God. We must stay in the shadow of the almighty. In other words, we should be putting ourselves to rest in his presence and in relationship with him, not just referencing it.

This section finishes off by saying that we trust in the Lord, that he is our refuge, and our fortress. That is crucial. You wouldn’t want to stay with someone you don’t trust. Likewise, you wouldn’t have peace in the presence of Lord if you didn’t trust him.

Peace Amongst Chaos

The majority of the rest of the chapter includes details on how you will be protected and covered in the dwelling place you’ve made with the Lord.

In this dwelling place, you can be sure that:

• He’ll deliver you from the deadly pestilence and the traps of the enemy.
• You’ll be covered by his protection and you’ll find refuge.
• You won’t fear much at all, not the pestilence, nor the destruction.
• A thousand will fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, and the destruction will never hit you.
• Literally so many other things. You’ll be protected on every corner.

Clearly, when your dwelling place, your home, is found in the presence of the Lord, you are protected. He protects you simply by his angels guarding you (Ps. 91:11). How great is that!

Even amidst the most chaotic positions and places ever, the Lord protects us. Amongst destruction, pestilence, traps, deceit, you are protected by the Lord and his angels. Certainly, we can find peace in that.

Setting the Peace

All this protection and comfort doesn’t just come naturally. It’s not automatic. The scripture doesn’t say “you will automatically be protected from harm, no matter what”. In fact, it clearly has a cause-and-effect statement. Let’s look at the verse.

“Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place—
the Most High, who is my refuge—
no evil shall be allowed to befall you,
no plague come near your tent.” (Psalm 91:9-10)

The peace has to be set, for you to receive. In other words, you must make the dwelling place and live there in order to receive the protection.

This is a crucial step. There was once a verse that I heard that fired me up in times of spiritual warfare. The verse was James 4:7 and said, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”

I started to resist the lies of the enemy, standing as firm as I could, expecting the devil and his lies to flee. To my surprise, they didn’t. After a while of the same process, resisting the devil, the lies not leaving, I heard the Holy Spirit speak. “Have you done the first step?”, I heard him say.

I definitely hadn’t. Just a small note, if the Holy Spirit asks you if you’ve done something, just assume he already knows the answer.

But, once I did, the lies ceased. That’s the same process we must do when it comes to the dwelling place.

Making the Dwelling Place

“How to get this dwelling place” is the next question you’ll probably be asking. We can’t exactly build a real house where the Holy Spirit may dwell, because we already have the Holy Spirit. But what we can do is we can make ourselves a place for the Holy Spirit.

One of the greatest instances of a dwelling place we can see in scripture is the tabernacle of David.

We don’t see much of the tabernacle in scripture though it is referenced multiple times throughout the Bible. What we do know about it was that it was an open tent that held the ark, which represented the presence of God. We also know that people came to this place to worship the Lord. In fact, you could probably go to this place and hear hundreds of voices at one time! Can you imagine how much peace you would feel there?

This is the one tabernacle that is going to be restored at some point as well, which tells you even more how important it is to the Lord.

So, what we know, is that this tabernacle for a place for worship. It invited the Spirit of God in, whether through prayer, worship, everyone here invited the spirit of God in.

That is what we must do then. Invite the Holy Spirit in. Fortunately for us, there are so many ways that we can do that. We can do that through prayer, reading scripture, serving, or worship. In fact, there are even more ways that we can invite the presence of the Holy Spirit in!

The most important thing is that we make room for the Holy Spirit to enter into every area of our lives. From this, we have peace.

Practical Application

There are a few ways that we can apply this to our lives almost instantaneously.

• We can pray or read scripture. This is a great and easy way to invite the Holy Spirit in on a daily basis. Whether it’s one chapter, a 30 second prayer session or anything else, this is something we should be practicing.
• We can serve in church and be in community. Where two or more are gathered in his name, there he is (Matthew 18:20). Being a part of church and community is a fantastic way for us to celebrate the Lord and find peace in the dwelling place.
• We must remember the promises in the middle of chaos. In order to really experience peace, we must resist the chaos. It’s always important to go back to a verse like Psalm 91 and believe all the promises that the verse gives us. We will be protected, so we can have peace!

Final Thoughts

Whether you’re struggling with anxiety, depression, exhaustion, or really anything bad in life, you can surely use some extra peace. What’s better than getting heavenly peace from a gracious God?

The way that we can all get that peace is from the dwelling place we can make with the Lord. Lucky for us, all there really is to it, is to make room for the Lord.

We can do that in so many ways. Through prayer, scripture, community, however you do it, invite the Lord into your life. I can assuredly say to you that this is a proven way to find peace in even the most chaotic times.

Have a great week and make time and room for Jesus to enter into your life!