10 Steps to Find Peace in Everyday Chaos

Doesn’t living in peace sound nice?

I don’t mean peace as an absence of conflict. The frail peace that shatters as soon as tensions rise isn’t worth much.

I don’t mean the peace of a hermit who abandons the activity of the world to focus on their spiritual life. This peace is of enormous value but isn’t sustainable with a spouse, kids, coworkers, and all the drama that comes along with these things.

We’re talking about peace that allows us to face the uncertainties, disappointments, failures, illnesses, calamities, and anxieties that find their way into our lives without losing our minds or our faith.

Peace amid everyday chaos is possible! These ten steps will prepare you to receive it. Each step given here is expanded upon in detail. Plus, at the end of this article are some suggestions to help navigate the path.

1 - Defining Success

Every journey needs a map. Every project needs a goal. Finding peace in everyday chaos is a lifelong journey and a demanding project. Setting off on the adventure without thinking through the destination is going to be much more difficult than it needs to be.

God wants to give us His peace, but if our expectations are off then we may not recognize or appreciate it.

Read more here about defining success for this grand adventure! I’ve also reflected on what this looks like in my life.

2 - Seeking Conversion

After we understand where we’re going, it’s time to pack our bags and get ready to set out. The keys to successfully packing for a trip are bringing what you need and leaving behind what will only weigh you down.

This journey requires packing our virtues and pitching our vices. Walking right up to God’s front door doesn’t bring a drop of peace if we bring along our pride, addictions, anxieties, and desire to control the circumstances around us.

Conversion is turning away from the attitudes and behaviors that blind us to peace. Read more here about the conversion that’s needed to find that peace we crave.

3 - Building the Team

The final step before truly starting on the journey is setting up a support system. I’ve had the privilege of being on the Support & Gear team when my brother completed a 100-mile run. While he ran every step of the course, he depended on the support, attention, and assistance of his team.

We have access to a great army of helpers who are willing and able to provide more support than we realize. Trying to find God’s peace alone—either through ignorance or pride—is lonely and grueling. There are no bonus points for being a lone wolf, so swallow our pride and build our team.

Read more here about putting together a great support and gear team for your journey.

4 - Embracing Reality

It’s tempting to think we’d be peaceful and happy if this or that circumstance changed. God often has no interest in changing those things. He usually wants us to accept them and—eventually—love them.

Some things will need to change, of course, but God probably isn’t calling a husband to leave his wife and find peace as a priest or a mother to abandon her children to find peace in a convent. Peace isn’t somewhere “out there”. It’s likely to be found right where you are.

Read more here about discerning which circumstances are to be sacrificed and which are to be embraced in the pursuit of peace.

5 - Riding the Wave

The life God wants us to live has turbulent waves that threaten to pull us under. Since we’ve discerned that these waves are a natural part of our lives—such as the challenges of balancing work, kids, and marriage for a young couple—then the next step is getting good at them. We should allow ourselves to build the skills we need to thrive in this world rather than fighting against it.

Read more here about learning how to ride the waves of our lives and enjoy ourselves rather than resenting our circumstances.

6 - Plotting a Course

Keeping our heads above water is important—for obvious reasons—but, it’s not satisfying for long. Surviving is not thriving and if we spend all of our energy focused on the moment, who knows where the current will take us? Will we be happy where we end up?

We learn to ride the waves so we have the time and energy to discern where God is calling us. We watch where He leads and do our best to follow in His wake.

Read more here about plotting a course through life so we’re always where we’re supposed to be and end on course.

7 - Making Responsibilities Get Along

We have many demands on our time and energy. Each should bring us closer to our goal, but they often compete with each other and leave us exhausted and frustrated. We see where we’re supposed to go, but getting there feels out of reach when our external and internal vocations compete for our attention.

Have you deeply discerned your internal vocations: the callings that define the shape of your life? What about your external vocations: the callings that are good, but not necessarily central to your identity? Are they well-aligned with each other?

Read more here about making sure our responsibilities work together to push us forward instead of adding to the chaos around us.

8 - It’s All About Encounter

Now that we know where we’re going and have done what we can to get there, it’s time to focus on arriving! God never was somewhere “out there”. He’s always been immediately available. We’ve just been too disordered and distracted to notice.

Peace in the midst of everyday chaos flows from a regular diet of encountering God. Peace never was the goal, if we’re honest. The goal has always been to be close to God. That closeness helps us see the challenges of our circumstances the right way; through God’s eyes.

Read more here to get a better idea of what encountering God looks like and then here are a few practical images of encountering God to get us started.

9 - Purification

Encountering God leads to peace through purification. God doesn’t magically make our circumstances convenient. We don’t become ignorant or indifferent to the real challenges that we and our loved ones face.

No, God gives peace by purifying us from the inside out so the volume of the anxieties of life is turned down and the real priorities come into focus. We don’t change our behavior or try to make ourselves feel peaceful when we aren’t. We allow God to help us let go of trying to control everything and follow Him to a place where we trust that He’s going to be there in our time of need.

Read more here about three parts of us that need purification and what it looks like.

10 - Sharing What We Received

God’s grace is most effective when it’s passed on to others. Just like a lake with no outlets becomes lifeless—and gross—we need to share the gifts that God gives us if we want to keep receiving fresh grace from Him. Receiving grace and passing it along is the final step in truly living in peace amid everyday chaos!

Read more here to see examples of sharing the gifts we’ve received along our journey.

Practical Advice

While 10 steps is plenty to keep us occupied, here are some bits of advice as we go about the work of pursuing God’s peace.

These steps aren’t a checklist. They cannot be completed once and then abandoned. The goal is to make each step a habit, but there won’t be a time in our lives when peace comes easily. These steps are a framework that we can deepen, but will not outgrow.

Build peace into your day. No one can remember 10 steps all day, every day. Do yourself a favor and build peaceful habits into your routine. For example, try setting several alarms throughout the day for a “soul tune-up” where we’re reminded to let God tune our souls to what He has to say. How can you build peace into your day?

Resume your journey as often as it takes. I still find myself bebopping through life and all of a sudden realizing that I’ve completely forgotten to even try to be peaceful. I look back and see that I’ve been sucked into a book, TV series, or problem at work and my old habits came back the moment I got distracted.

The best response is to pick up again with as little drama as possible. The only way to truly fail is to give up.

Follow the path from where you are, not where you wish you were. I often overestimate my spirituality. I want to be further along, more holy, less prideful, more docile, and less self-centered. I expect things of myself that I’m not able to deliver.

Pretending sets me up for disappointment. It’s much better to be honest about our struggles, challenges, and addictions. They can be healed if we acknowledge and surrender them. They cannot be overcome if we deny that they exist. Be honest with yourself and God.

Be gentle with yourself. Being holy is hard. Don’t expect to be good at it. If you never failed then you wouldn’t need a savior. The world will beat you up enough, you don’t have to join in. Jesus loves you amid failure. Follow His example.