Let it be known: I hate bumper stickers like that above. Mostly because I think they’re cheesy and ineffective, but sometimes it reminds me of a truth that tends to fall hollow with me.

You see, I know Jesus but I feel like I have no peace.

My head and heart are almost always spinning with busyness, noise, stress, and other things that crowd out any semblance of peace. I’m not talking external peace; I mean internal peace.

While I’ll tackle the topic of joy another day, I think joy and peace go hand-in-hand in some way. The idea of peace has always evoked an image of joy along with it (in my mind).

I’ve taken a vacation from paid work this week but still feel like I have no peace. I’m stressed. I’m nervous. I’m afraid that I’m on the verge of a nervous breakdown and headed back to a psych hospital. (Maybe I need to visit once every six years to remind me how much I hate it?) I have all this spiritual static in my head that succeeds in clouding God out and making Him fuzzy around the edges.

The point of learning how to enjoy God is not that I’ll have arrived by the time I publish one of these posts but that it’s a process: I’m learning. An aspect of being able to enjoy God is also enjoying the peace that He provides.

Hopefully God will help me out in this area in 2011.