Walking in God's Peace

Well, this journal note is different.

Here I sit this evening at my pilgrim’s desk, remembering today’s walk with Jesus. I remember the warmth of the sun on my back as it climbed in the eastern sky. I noticed a tennis shoe still dangling from a cypress tree branch twenty feet up, mud still clinging to the sole. I wondered if it belonged to a now departed soul. The flood that ran through this path on July 4, 2025, still leaves its reminders of God’s supreme power. This is what walking in the world felt like.

And then the experience changed.

The walk began to feel like walking in God’s peace. It was as if, in certain moments, there was no separation between God and me. The feeling was much like when my wife and I hug—there is a melting of one into the other. It is as if there is one body with two distinct souls, united in a single moment of pure peace.

That’s what my simple walk with Jesus felt like today.

My steps were God’s steps. Don’t get me wrong—I’m not saying I was God, only that He felt that close. Like there were my footprints, but His imprint upon the path I walked.

Some might call the feeling “bliss,” because complete peace blended into joy. I couldn’t keep a smile off my face as one person after another passed by. Perhaps they thought I had too much wine, as I would start to chuckle. But the encounters with other walkers along God’s narrow path, whether brief or lingering, carried a different quality.

It felt like love. Pure agape love.

This wasn’t me loving—it was God loving through me. And with it came more joy, more peace. The colors seemed brighter. The river sparkled.

As I recall it now, I’m reminded of a meeting I attended with brothers who were well along the sanctification trail back in 2004. I was a tenured university professor then, but a new believer. We sat together in a circle in a comfortable living room, surrounded by overstuffed chairs.

What struck me was how my Christian brothers would begin smiling and laughing, almost spontaneously, as if they were sharing a joke I couldn’t hear or understand. It felt as though something unseen was passing between them—like they had too much wine, just as in the first century.

It has taken me over twenty years of walking with Jesus to begin experiencing what they felt.

The feeling is indescribable—and yes, even intoxicating.

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But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. Galatians 5:22–23 (NKJV)