Day 31

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”   — PHILIPPIANS 4:6-7

There sounds little more that is unrealistic than for Paul to write, “Do not be anxious about anything”! Surely there are a multitude of legitimate occasions for being anxious when things in our lives or our world are falling apart! But we must read his whole sentence. He follows with the little word, ‘but’.  That is a key hinge word. It is a word on which everything changes. ‘…but in everything…’; that is, in the things that make you anxious, ‘by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God’.  That is the key.

Yes, there are many things that threaten us, but when they do, says Paul, give them to God.  That is a lot more than just praying about them. We may pray about an issue, but never give it to God for we carry its burden on our shoulders as much after we have prayed as we did before. This does not mean we become indifferent to the issue, but that it is now God’s responsibility rather than ours, and we have deliberately entrusted it to Him. We know when we have, because instead of anxiety, there is peace. It is a peace that may seem at times to be irrational, for Paul calls it, ‘the peace of God, which transcends all understanding’.  

Several times in his writings, Paul describes God as ‘the God of peace’: “The God of peace be with you all” (Romans 15:33). A mark that we are relating rightly to God is this experience of His peace. ‘Peace with God’, is one thing. It is knowing we have been reconciled to Him, and are no longer enemies but friends. It is about our position before Him. But knowing the ‘peace of God’ is another thing altogether. It is the submission to His sovereignty of everything that would disturb our peace and create anxiety, and is an internal work that ‘guards our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus’. It is not about our position, but our condition. It is what equips us in our disturbed world to live with a calm sense of peace, for we have presented every challenge to God and are resting in His sufficiency for it.

PRAYER: Dear Lord, help me not to be anxious about the many legitimate concerns that do invade my life, but instead to present them to You, trusting You, and to know your peace pervading those areas that do alarm me.

TO REFLECT UPON: What things in the past have driven me from God, and what things tend to drive me to God?