This Day in History: 0000-05-02

May 2 – Philippians 4:6-7

Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything.  Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done.  Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand.  His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

Anything?  We’re not supposed to worry about anything?  That seems a little unrealistic, doesn’t it?  But, that’s what it says.  And it’s not really worded like a suggestion, is it?  No, much to our dismay, this sounds more like a command.  Thank God, it doesn’t stop there, it gives us that beautiful “instead.”  God graciously gives us an exact recipe to follow in order to achieve obedience to His very difficult command. And to top it off, as He so often does, He follows His command with a promise.  He tells us exactly what we can expect from Him when we obey. (I think there’s a parenting lesson in there somewhere, but that’s a whole other blog post!)

So, here’s the command, followed by the recipe: “Don’t worry about anything; INSTEAD, pray about everything.”

More specifically, ” Tell God what you need and thank Him for what He has done.”  I don’t know about you, but that first part comes pretty naturally to me.  I’m generally quick to cry out to God in my need, and yet I often still find myself worrying. But that’s because I’m trying to finish the recipe with only half of the ingredients!  We all know that would never work in the kitchen, and yet so often I think many of us are surprised when it doesn’t work here.  The directions are, tell God what you need AND thank Him for what He has done.

Friends, we will be blown away by the consistent results of putting these two ingredients together!  Something happens when we start to thank God for His work.  It causes us to focus in on how faithful He has always been.  It causes us to remember the mighty works He has done and is doing.  It takes our eyes off of what we need and puts them on the One we’re asking to help us. The result, every single time, is peace.

Peace.  In the tumult of life, isn’t that an alluring idea?  What would it be like if, no matter what was going on around us, our hearts and minds were at peace?  These verses say, a peace that exceeds anything we can understand!  That is what our Savior offers.  He promises to guard our hearts and minds and bring us peace.

What worries are standing between you and peace today?  Let’s tell God what we need and thank Him for all he has done, and then, let’s sit back and enjoy the peace that exceeds anything we can understand that He will certainly give us, for He never fails to fulfill His promises to us!  Let’s get on our knees right now and find peace!