And he said to Judah, “Let us build these cities and surround them with walls and towers, gates and bars. The land is still ours, because we have sought the Lord our God. We have sought him, and he has given us peace on every side.” So they built and prospered. (2 Chronicles 14:7 ESV)

There is peace in the seeking. That is to say that when we seek God, He gives us peace. Let me explain that statement.

In this passage we find Asa, king of Judah, in a golden age not seen in this area since Solomon was king. There was so much peace that he had time to make infrastructure improvements– ten years of improvement.

That much is obvious from our passage today. Asa attributes his uncanny peace to the fact that he and everybody he was entrusted to lead sought after God. In seeking out God’s will, there overflowed into their socio-economic lives a prosperity and peace.

Skeptically, you are thinking that this is nothing more than Israelite propaganda written by the author of this particular book to plainly paint out the fact that there is a correlation between seeking God and prosperity.

More than likely, this causal link was made by the author to point to the fact that the reader’s life probably was not peaceful or prosperous because he or she had not been seeking after God. However, this debate can be tabled for another day.

What I want to point out here is that peace and prosperity are not directly correlated to seeking God. In fact, we know from experience that seeking God usually disturbs our ill gotten peace and sense of mind.

Asa battled with the Ethiopians, a million of them according to this passage, in his time as king. Therefore, coming to terms with the fact that Asa says that God gives them peace on every side and still finds himself battling a nation leads us to one conclusion: his heart was at peace in seeking God and that was all the peace he needed to build and prosper.

Take this with you for the weekend: seek God for your everything (needs, wants and worries) and find peace on every side of you, even if you are warring with people around you.

Cry to God and seek Him, and find out how God defeats and allows you to build and prosper.