Peace Be Still

A storm is raging, the boat is filling, and Jesus is asleep. That single detail from Mark 4 still messes with us, because it sounds like the moments when we feel overwhelmed and wonder if God sees what we are facing. On today’s Music Monday, we sit with Hope Darst’s powerful worship song “Peace Be Still” and the unforgettable line where Jesus speaks to chaos and everything changes: “Peace, be still.” 

We walk through the Sea of Galilee story and the disciples’ raw question, “Teacher, don’t you care that we drown?” Then we slow down on Jesus’ response, especially the piercing follow-up: “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” For anyone battling fear, anxiety, insecurity, or that constant sense of instability, this is a five-minute reset that points to a deeper kind of confidence, not rooted in personality or willpower, but in who God is and what He has already placed within us. We also explore a challenging thought the passage raises: what if faith is not only trusting Jesus to speak, but learning to stand in His authority and speak peace into our own storms. 

Hope Darst’s own backstory makes the message even more human. She shares how the song was born in a writing room on a day when fear and anxiety felt overwhelming, and how she sang the promise of God’s peace over her life long before the world ever heard it. If you need calm in the middle of chaos, you will want to hear this and then listen to the song clip and YouTube link in the show notes. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs peace today, and leave a review telling us what storm you are trusting God with right now.

Here is the YouTube link to Peace Be Still
https://youtu.be/C8Ys2fa7jZk?si=HRr4wDplzli-TR_T    

Transcript

Music Monday And The Song Pick

Mark 4 Storm And Peace Be Still

Faith Versus Fear In Real Life

How Hope Darst Wrote It

Link In Show Notes And Clip

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Good morning and welcome to Starting Right with Danny Mack. I'm going to be here every Monday to Friday to help you get a great five-minute start to your day. So grab your cup of coffee, sit back, relax, and let me help you start your day right. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to Music Monday. Today we're going to take a look at a really wonderful song called Peace Be Still, written by Hope Darst, Andrew Holt, and Mia Fields. I'm sure most of you have heard this song. Maybe you've even sung it in church. It is one of those songs that will move you and it will pull you into that place of worship to God for who he is and the fact that we can trust him. When absolutely everything else in our life may be going crazy and may be unstable, God is still there for us to trust. I'm sure you recognize the song is based upon Mark chapter four, where Jesus and his disciples were in a boat going across the Sea of Galilee. It had been a long day, Jesus was asleep in the back of the boat. And in verse thirty seven it tells us that a furious squall came up and the waves broke over the boat so that it was nearly swamped. And then it goes on to tell us that the disciples were freaking out, and Jesus was continuing to sleep. They finally woke him up saying, Teacher, don't you care that we drown? And then verse 39, Jesus got up, rebuked the wind and the waves, and said, Peace be still. Then the wind died down, and it was completely calm. And he said to his disciples, Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith? Sometimes we fail to recognize the immense power of Jesus' words when he asked that question. He was telling the disciples that if they had faith, they could have trusted that because Jesus was with them, that they would be safe and they would be able to ride out this storm, that Jesus would protect them. Or maybe he meant something even a little bit stronger. Maybe what Jesus was saying was that if they really had faith and they really understood the authority that God has placed within them, they could have stood up and spoken to the storm themselves. I believe one of the biggest challenges that we all have is to live by faith, to have a complete and total trust in Jesus Christ and what he has done, what he's given us and what he's doing. There's no doubt in my mind that God has so much more for us that we are missing out on because we spend more time in fear and doubt than we do in believing and having faith. That courage and strength does not come because of our own abilities. It can only be part of our lives because of who God is and what he has already placed within us. In a radio interview, Hope Darst was asked by the interviewer how the song came to be. Hope said it happened like this. I was at a time when I was really struggling with fear, anxiety, and insecurity, and one of my co-writers, Mia Fields, she arrived at the writing room that day, and we were both feeling that our lives were falling apart. And as a result, we needed to write a song about peace to combat the feeling we were having. And the words that Jesus spoke the disciples seemed to hit us both very hard that morning. It's not uncommon for any of us to be dealing with fear and struggling to have the faith we need to believe that God is able to solve the problems that we face. We just feel so overwhelmed sometimes. But the promise of God is that He will be with us to give us peace in the middle of the storms. It's a song that reminds you of the authority God has over whatever you are facing, and the promise of peace he speaks over your life. Hopefully, it allows you to recognize that you can trust that God is for you and with you, and no matter what you're walking through, he offers you peace that passes your understanding or your circumstance. She finished the interview by saying I had to sing this song over my life as an act of faith long before it was a song known by anybody else. I had to sing the promise of God's peace over fear, disappointment, insecurity, and anxiety until the atmosphere of my mind and heart shifted. Peace be still, say the word, and I will set my feet upon the sea till I'm dancing in the deep. Peace be still, you are here, so it is well. The YouTube link for this song is in your show notes today, and I'm going to leave you with just a short clip of the song. It's wonderful, and if you've not heard it before, make sure you do, because it will encourage you. Here's Hope Darst with Peace Be Still.