Let nothing disturb you
Peace at the center
Teresa left behind a few lines, scribbled in her prayer book, that have steadied anxious souls ever since. Let nothing disturb you, they begin; let nothing frighten you. All things pass; God does not change. The one who has God lacks nothing. God alone is enough. It is the distilled wisdom of a soul that had journeyed to the center and found, there, an unshakable peace.
The peace she described is not the absence of trouble; her own life was full of opposition, illness, and hardship. It is a peace that holds in the middle of trouble, anchored not in calm circumstances but in an unchanging God. When your security rests in the One who does not change, the things that pass — and everything else passes — lose their power to finally disturb you.
Jesus promised exactly this kind of peace. Peace I leave with you, he said; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives, do I give to you. The world's peace depends on everything going well; Christ's peace is given from within, holding the heart steady when nothing goes well at all. In your presence, the psalmist adds, is fullness of joy. The soul that has found God at its center has found a peace the storms outside cannot reach.
“Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, give I to you. Don't let your heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful.”
— Jesus, in the upper room — John 14:27 (WEB)
Anchor your peace in the unchanging God at your center, not in your circumstances — so that, all things passing, nothing can finally disturb you.
“You will show me the path of life. In your presence is fullness of joy. In your right hand there are pleasures forevermore.”
Watch what your calm is built on, and you will usually find it perched on circumstance — propped up when fortunes hold, toppling the moment they shift, leaving a thousand changeable things in charge of whether you are disturbed. The interior work is to move that peace onto the one God who does not change, receiving Christ's kind, which is given from within and holds when everything outside is failing, until the soul that has God at its center knows it lacks nothing and cannot finally be shaken.
This week, when you feel disturbed or afraid, return to Teresa's anchor: let nothing disturb you; all things pass; God does not change; the one who has God lacks nothing. Rest your security on the unchanging God rather than the shifting circumstance.
Fear keeps your calm tied to your fortunes, rattling you with every shift because your security rests on things that pass. Anchor it instead in the God who does not change, and a peace the world cannot give holds steady through the storms that once undid you — for the one who has God truly lacks nothing.
Most of our peace is circumstantial — it rises when things go well and collapses when they go wrong, leaving us at the mercy of every shift in our fortunes. We are disturbed by a thousand things because our security rests on a thousand things, all of which can change. Teresa points to a peace anchored elsewhere: in the one God who does not change.
The soul that has found God at its center is not exempt from trouble, but it is no longer ruled by it. All things pass; God does not change; the one who has God lacks nothing. This is the peace Christ gives — not the world's kind, which needs everything to go right, but his kind, which holds the heart steady when everything goes wrong. Let your security rest on the unchanging One, and let nothing disturb you, for the soul that has God truly lacks nothing at all.
- Is my peace circumstantial, rising and collapsing with my fortunes?
- Does my security rest on things that change, or on the God who does not?
- What would it mean to truly believe the one who has God lacks nothing?
Lord, my peace rises and falls with my circumstances, and I am disturbed by a thousand changing things. Let nothing disturb me. You do not change, and the one who has you lacks nothing. Give me your peace, not the world's, anchored in you alone. Amen.