Isaiah 26:3 A nation of firm purpose you keep in peace; in peace, for its trust in you. (NAB St. Joseph Edition)
New International Version
You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.
New Living Translation
You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!
English Standard Version
You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.
Holman Christian Standard Bible
You will keep the mind that is dependent on You in perfect peace, for it is trusting in You.
International Standard Version
You will keep perfectly peaceful the one whose mind remains focused on you, because he remains in you.
I wanted to share a few different Bible versions of this same verse. They all mean the same thing, but the slightly different wordings help capture the bigger picture. In my Catholic Bible, it is written “a nation” of firm purpose, the purpose being keeping the truth of God, referring to the people as a whole. Not just a single person. This caught my attention compared to other versions after this weekend’s gospel reading. Sunday was the Solemnity of our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, and the gospel reading was Matthew 25, where Jesus said “ When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, He will sit upon His glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before Him. And He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on His right and the goats on His left.” The gospel goes on to tell us that Jesus said those who {take care ] ‘of the least of mine do so for me.’ Jesus said as a nation, we would be put either on his right or his left. Then as a nation, we need to learn to depend on him more. Or we may be the goats when Jesus returns.
Back to the scripture at hand. The words are right here in these verses are about how to depend on God. Our minds need to be steadfast on God our thoughts fixed on him. Our minds need to remain focused on God. Our hearts need to be unmovable, our thoughts sound. To be unmovable is to set our minds on things above, not things of the earth. It means to be a fortress for God, so that when something bad happens around us, we won’t crumble. But you can’t be a solid force with a weak foundation.
It might sound difficult to keep our minds on God throughout the day, but it isn’t as hard as we make it out it to be. If we can easily allow other thoughts to cross our mind, we can just as easily allow God to. If we can easily pull up our phones and scroll through FB or Twitter or even the news, we can just as easily have a Bible app and scroll through it. Or a prayer app. It’s just as easy to turn to God as it is to turn away from him. It’s a conscious choice we make throughout the day. If we can learn to tune in to God instead of social media or the wreckage of the world around us, we can learn to hear him and depend on him. All we need is to put our trust in God. Let him fill your heart. Let him fill your mind. See what this change can open for your life. Become unmovable.
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