“May the God of all hope fill you with all joy and PEACE as you

trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the POWER

of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13)

   “I guess I’m just a born worrier.”

   “When I give in to overeating, I feel so powerless and ashamed.”

   “When I scroll through social media, I sometimes get so churned up and angry inside.”

   “My husband says I get frustrated when I can’t control the daily circumstances in my life.”

   “My wife says my hobby has started ruling my life.”

    As a pastor and professor, I hear confessions like this often. They come from men and women, of every age, from different family and social and political backgrounds. And they sound strangely familiar to the echoes of worries and temptations and frustrations I encounter in my own life journey.

    These experiences have convinced me that most people have two great longings, even if they struggle to name them clearly. These longings are an uncomfortable dissatisfaction just beneath the daily-ness of life’s circumstances, a nagging void not easily identified. Sometimes, they suddenly surface in a moment of anxious fear or during a sleepless night. These two overarching longings are for inner peace and power. Not a self-generated peace. Not a self-boosting power. These methods have been tried, and they quickly reached the end of their effectiveness. They couldn’t fulfill their promises. The authentic, enduring inner peace and power needed must be beyond mere human self-help strategies—they must be supernatural, a genuine gift from God.

    This is the peace Jesus offered when he said, “I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid” (Jn. 14:27, NLT). It is what Paul described: “Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:7, NLT). And the power? “By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life” (2 Peter 1:3, NLT.) “Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think” (Eph. 3:20, NLT). The “power at work within us” Peter is referring to is supernatural strength from the Holy Spirit living within us: “I pray that from [God’s] glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit” (Eph. 3:16, NLT).

   In fact, isn’t it fascinating that much of the story of the Bible highlights these two God-endowed gifts? Both the Old and New Testaments are, in large part, the story of God’s power at work to restore people and this world to peace. Jesus actually links our commitment to knowing (and “knowing” includes living out) Scripture with experiencing the power of God: “Your mistake is that you don’t know the Scriptures, and you don’t know the power of God” (Mt. 22:29, NLT).

    With this in mind, we offer the Peace and Power Podcast, reaching as far and wide as we can with the Gospel: “For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work…” (Romans 1:16, NLT). The ongoing theme of these weekly “Bible talks” will be how the whole Bible guides us into experiencing the peace and power of God in our lives.

    Would you please pray for this venture? Pray that the Holy Spirit, the Agent of God’s presence who lives within us through faith, will use this humble means of getting out the Word of God to people who live daily with the two great longings for true peace and liberating power.