Kingdom Chaos

What If Peace Is A Practice, Not A Finish Line

• Troy • Season 1 • Episode 2

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What if peace isn’t waiting at the end of your to-do list, but available right where you stand? We take a hard look at the lie that joy arrives once life calms down and offer a better way: practicing presence with God in the ordinary, unfinished moments of real life. From childhood to careers to retirement, chaos keeps showing up—but so does grace, if we know where to look.

We explore how Scripture frames transformation as a long journey rather than a quick fix, leaning into David’s years between anointing and kingship as a masterclass in preparation over punishment. Along the way, we unpack how trust grows like compound interest through small, daily deposits—simple prayers, honest gratitude, and steady obedience that quietly form unshakable faith. You’ll hear practical tools to stop outsourcing joy to the future: a daily anchor in Psalm 118:24, releasing “by now” timelines, practicing gratitude without denying pain, and slowing down with intentional rituals that help families and marriages breathe.

This conversation is both honest and hopeful, naming grief while pointing to peace that is not tied to outcomes. Expect concrete next steps and anchor scriptures—Philippians 4:6–7, Romans 15:13, Philippians 4:4—that help you live awake to God’s presence today. If you’re tired of waiting for someday, press play and start where you are. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs calm in the chaos, and leave a review to help others find the show. What’s one small practice you’ll try to be present this week?

Music by AlexGrohl from Pixabay

The Myth Of Someday Peace

Life’s Stages And Endless Busyness

Jesus’ Promise In Real Trouble

Purpose Formed In The Middle

Scripture Shows Slow Transformation

David’s Anointing And Waiting

Preparation, Not Punishment

Peace Offered In Ordinary Days

Trust Like Compound Interest

Psalm 118:24 As A Daily Anchor

Four Daily Practices For Peace

Gratitude Without Minimizing Pain

Slow Down And Be Present

Parenting, Presence, And Intentional Rituals

Grandparent Lens That Slows Time

Closing Prayer

Stop Chasing Someday, Live Today

SPEAKER_00

Welcome to Kingdom Chaos, a podcast for anyone trying to live a purpose and faith-filled life in a loud and messy world. Jesus said his kingdom in another story, yet here we are navigating real life and real struggles. I'm not a guru, just someone learning that God's grace meets us even in the chaos. This is Kingdom Chaos where faith meets real life and purpose is still found in the mess. Alright, welcome back to another episode of Kingdom Chaos. My name is Troy, and I want to start off this episode with a question that you probably wrestle with, but maybe don't say out loud. So, how many times have you told yourself I'll have peace when this season of my life is over, or I'll find joy whenever things finally settle down? For instance, maybe it's your finances and you're trying to get those stable, or your marriage is going through a hard time, and maybe it'll get easier in a year or two, or your kids are young. Once they get older, things will settle down, or work's crazy right now, but when it slows down, I'll find joy and peace. We keep pushing peace into the future like it's some kind of imaginary finish line we're trying to get to. But here's the tension I've realized in my own life. What if the season ends and there's just another hard season? What if life never actually slows down? Think about the stages in your life. You are young as a child, and you get to this awkward, you know, just junior high phase, and you gotta work through that, and then you're going off to finally get to high school, and there's a lot of high school drama, and you got to get through that chaos, and then you go into the workforce, or you go to college, and there's a whole another set of challenges, and then you there's there's marriage, and you have kids, and you try to just keep them alive from day to day, and then you have your career, you're trying to get promoted and advancement, and then I mean, goodness gracious, we're just going from from chaos to chaos, and then maybe you get to retirement one day and there's a whole nother set of challenges. And let's be honest with ourselves in this chaos isn't a face, it's part of living in a broken, unpredictable world. And somewhere along the way, we were told this lie, and we started to believe it that joy is a reward for getting everything under control. But Jesus never said, take heart, life will soon be manageable. He said, In this world, you're gonna have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world. To me, this means that it was never supposed to be some destination we get to, and then we find peace. It was meant to be experienced in the middle of the journey. So today I want to talk about something I'm still trying to learn myself, and that's how to stop waiting for things to calm down and start finding joy and peace right here, right now in the unfinished, uncertain, messy life. Because purpose doesn't just live on the other side of chaos. It's something that's being formed right in the middle of it. And let me tell you something, when we fall in the mindset of I'll have peace when the season is over, I'll find joy when things finally make sense. This keeps us spiritually restless because we're never gonna get to that finish line. It keeps us emotionally delayed because it doesn't allow us to experience those emotions of joy and peace, and we're constantly chasing later. We're living in the future and we're not being present in the moment right now. We postpone joy, waiting for some condition God never promised us. And let's look at scripture. Let's do that. Because in scripture, there are long journeys, not quick fixes. The transformation is usually slow. Let's look at David's life. David was probably in a lot of theologians and scholars think he could have been he could have been anointed when he was about eight years old. So that that anointing was was long before his kingship. And so when he was anointed, there was already a sitting king named Saul. And whenever David was anointed, he actually served Saul while Saul was still king. If Saul would have found out, he would have killed David. There was years of waiting for David to become king. He was hunted, he hid in caves, there was betrayal. Sure, there was fear from David that Saul found out he would kill him, and then there was this uncertainty in his future. There was a lot of chaos in these years David is waiting to become king. And you know what? Through that chaos, David learned a lot. He learned humility, incredible dependence on God, uh crazy leadership skills, mercy. He he spared Saul several times. The journey wasn't punishment, it was preparation. I used to coach kids softball, and what I would tell the young ladies when we go through all these drills, sprints, and lunges and all this stuff to build their endurance and their lungs and their muscles, I told them this is an opportunity for you guys to get better. You can either seize the opportunity or let it pass you by. And I think too often we let things pass us by and we fast forward life instead of taking the opportunity for preparation for our life. And Jesus offers peace right now in that chaos, not someday. He offers it right now. Peace is not tied to a circumstance. Like I said, we're going from one chaotic moment to another, chaotic stage of life to another. If we decided we're going to allow our circumstances to dictate our joy and peace, we would never feel it. We need to learn to experience God in the daily, in the ordinary moments, not just in the breakthroughs. You know, when I look back on my life and when I was a kid, a lot of the memories I find the fondest are the ordinary moments. The days I would go out and play football with my friends, or I would go out and my dad would help me uh you know fix my car, or I would help him fix the lawnmower, or we would build the, you know, when I was really young, we built this kind of like it wasn't a tree house, it was more of a playhouse because it was on the ground, but it was a swing set thing. I just remember those ordinary moments. We went to Disney World one time, I barely remember, and honestly, those memories that I have of that are more of just from pictures. I remember the ordinary moments. So it's important for us to experience God in the daily, in the ordinary moments of life. And joy isn't about pretending that everything's fine, it's about trusting God, it's about gratitude, and it's about perspective on life. I do want to spend a little time here on talking about trust, faith. It's interchangeable, trust and faith in God. It's kind of like compound interest. You know, you invest a little money, and you see your money starts to grow slow at first from interest, but then it's it grows pretty rapidly because it's starting to build upon itself. This is your spiritual walk with Christ. Your faith in him on the daily, not just in the highs, not just in the lows. You don't pray to him just every once in a while when you're grateful for him or when you really, really need him. It's every day you're communicating with him and building that relationship. And when you do that, it's your spiritual maturity starts off slow at first, but it builds upon itself very, very rapidly. And all of a sudden, you have this faith you can't turn back from, that you can't stop trusting God. You always have to do that. Now I want to give you some practical ways to find peace in the journey. The first thing I want to make sure we do is I want to throw a scripture out there for you guys to remember, meditate on, and have this kind of our our big picture scripture for this podcast. And that's Psalm 118 24. This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. This is the day. So we're gonna do this daily. This is the day the Lord has made. And tomorrow, this is the day the Lord has made. And the next day, this is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. This is a daily practice. So, what are the four daily practices I want you to do? One, notice God in the small moments. We need to document this. So pull out your phone, pull out your notes app, or if you want to write on a piece of paper, whatever you do, document this. Three things that you can be thankful for for God daily. And don't make these things repetitive. So I could say I'm thankful for my wife every single day, right? But I want to find a new, fresh thing to be thankful for. I met a new couple today. We've started a new relationship, and I can't wait to see where God takes our friendship. That would be something new and fresh that I want to make sure I document. Thank you, God, for this new connection you've made. I can't wait to see where it goes and where you lead us. Another one within my marriage, me and my wife like to play board games and car games. So I could write, thank you, God, for XYZ game. We're gonna have fun in it, we're gonna connect through it. Thank you, God, for presenting this to us and allowing us to connect through this game. So those are things, new things daily that you're gonna thank God for. Be grateful in the small moments of life. Another thing, release timelines and expectations. By now I should have kids. By now I should be married. By now I should be retired. By now I should be promoted. By now, by now, by now. Stop that. Stop. Release those timelines and expectations. Stop living somebody else's life. Stop living in the future and live in the moment you're in right now. Remember Psalm 118-24. This is the day the Lord has made. Not 10 years from now is the day the Lord has made. This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. The third thing, practice gratitude without minimizing pain. Both can coexist. You know, right now, me and my wife, we're experiencing some pain. There's a woman in our church that has passed away. My wife volunteered with her for years, and she's seen our kids grow up, our grandkids grow up, grow up, and it's painful that we're not going to be able to go to church and see her and continue our relationship here on earth. But we are grateful. There's a lot of things to be grateful for. One is that we got to experience life with her. We got to experience just her, she was able to get on the floor. We have videos of her on the floor coloring with our grandkids and just knowing her and being able to see the example of Christ that she was. It was, I'm so grateful for that. Grateful that she knew Jesus and I know where she's at right now. She's with him. So grateful in that. But that doesn't mean the pain's not there. That doesn't mean I don't feel like I want to be at church and see her and talk to her again. That pain still exists. So we don't want to minimize that pain, but at the same time, there's so much to be grateful for. And we want to make sure we do that. So practice gratitude without minimizing pain. And the last thing is slow down and be present. Stop filling your life with noise that steals your time and eliminate those distractions that drain peace. What I want to give you an example of, because I know that parents that have multiple kids, it this is difficult. I understand that there's a lot of things to do. I talked about it a minute ago, and we were just trying to get from day to day, just trying to keep your kid alive and trying to get them their schoolwork done and try to get them fed and try, you know, get them to bed on time and bathed and then wake up and do it all over again, get them back to school and get them home and do homework and just trying to do that and keep them you know going from day to day. I understand. And not every day is going to be a perfect black and white TV show type moment, but you can be intentional. You need to find time to be intentional, to slow things down, be present with your kids. Have a dinner date with them. Uh, every Sunday night is dinner at the table with the family, and you dig into their lives, especially as they grow up, but make it a practice early so that that is a foundational thing. They just know this is what we're gonna do. Go to church on Sundays, go to a park, but be intentional, carve out time to make sure that you guys are intentionally you know slowing down and building relationships with your kids. I'm telling you, husbands and wives, you need to do this as well. Make sure you spend time with each other, the kids are in bed, whatever it is, make time. I don't care if it's 10, 15 minutes, get conversation cards and learn about each other. Me and my wife have been married nearly 29 years. We can still get those conversation cards and learn things about each other. So don't stop learning about each other and having conversations with each other. So important. I'm gonna tell you a quick story before I close out, or uh kind of an example of how you can slow your life down. You know, whenever our kids, the difference between our kids, I've got two kids that are nearly 30 year years old now, and then I've got six grandkids. The oldest is seven, and the youngest is gonna be born in a couple months. The biggest difference between the two, whenever we talk about the you know, time going by so fast, I can look at raising our kids, and it's like we have life on fast forward. We we were when I look at it, I was like, man, why is life like I woke up and my kids are graduating, and I used to think it was because I was just trying to get them to stay alive. I was trying to get them from day to day, but actually it's not as granular as that. It's it's a more big picture. I was trying to get them from momentum, uh, from momentous moment to momentous moment, from from goal to goal. I was trying to get them the first goal is let's get them to walk. All right, they're walking. Okay, let's get they need this, they need to be talking now. Okay, well, now they need to start school. Now they need to graduate elementary school, let's get them in middle school, let's get them their learner's permit, driver's license, graduate high school, and by before I know I fast forwarded through my life. And I was like, oh my goodness, this is crazy. But when I look at my grandkids, it's like that's not happening because this it's not my job to get them from moment to moment. It's my job to be present in their life, it's my job to experience them and them experience me. It's my job to be there for them and be there with them and play with them and color and uh you know all these different things. I was like, man, that slows life down so much. So find those moments that you can be intentional and try to slow your life down so your kids don't pass you by or your friends don't pass you by, or your family doesn't pass you by. And I want to encourage you, it is never too late. You're not too old to start doing this. Do it now. I don't care how old your kids are, be intentional, have a dinner date, make it Sunday nights, Saturday nights, whatever it is, but you're gonna sit around the table as a family. If your kids are long distance, you're gonna get on a Zoom call or whatever, and you're gonna start to talk to them and you're gonna start to build a relationship again, you're gonna start to connect, you're gonna slow time down, you're gonna live in the moment, not in the future. I want to make sure you understand that you're you shouldn't be chasing someday because if you are chasing someday, you're missing today. Stop chasing someday and start living today. You don't have to arrive somewhere to enjoy peace. Peace can be had every single day of your life if you accept it and look for it and try to get into it and slow your life down and trust in God. God isn't withholding joy until you get somewhere. The season of your life matters, even if it feels unfinished. Now, I've already given you one scripture I want you to memorize and meditate on, and that's Psalm 118 24. This is a day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. I want to give you three more anchor scriptures that I want you to go and look up and read. And that's Philippians 4, 6 through 7. Peace guarding hearts in the middle of anxiety. Romans 15, 13, joy and peace flowing from trust. Philippians 4, 4. Rejoice in the Lord always. Joy isn't waiting at a destination, it's found in walking with God every single day. Let's pray. God, thank you so much for being present in my life. Thank you so much for being present in the process and the journey of our lives. You're always there, God. You're always wanting us to communicate with you and talk to you. You're always present, Lord, in the process. And I thank you so much for that. I pray that we all release the pressure of rushing from season to season. I pray that we release trying to live another life or live in the future that we live in the moment today. God, I ask that you open our eyes to see joy today. What you're doing in our life today, what we can be thankful for in our life today, that you're doing in our life today. Lord, help us live in the present today. Thank you so much, Jesus, for who you are. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.