You will keep in perfect peace

him whose mind is steadfast,

because he trusts in you. - Isaiah 26:3

We long for peace, but it feels so elusive sometimes. All around us is so much darkness. How do we get peace, and how do we keep hold on it? What does it mean to have a steadfast mind?

I think the key is remembering. Remembering the gospel. Look at Psalm 103. David is calling to his “inmost being” to remember all the Lord’s benefits. Timothy Keller says that the English word for remembering is much more shallow than its Biblical version. He describes remembering in the Bible as having something “so central to your consciousness that it controls how you act.”

To remember the gospel is more than just knowing it in our minds. It is knowing it in our hearts. Keller goes on to say that we have to “pray our heart hot with the truth until it catches fire” through the practices of meditation and contemplation. We need to pay attention to the cries of our heart, and then take hold of our hearts. Talk to and wrestle with our hearts. Read Psalm 103 and see the truth of the gospel in it. Pray it until your heart catches the spark. And then you will know peace.