Don’t Stress, Cry Out to God
Philippians 4:6,7 Don’t worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplications with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
What do you do when you come to a Scripture that you know really well? Do you dwell on it to see if God has something new to say to you today, or do you skate over the surface and move on?
You may have heard me tell this story before, but stick with me because I want to come at it from a slightly different angle. A few years ago, I was sitting in a small group Bible study with a bunch of earnest, Bible-believing, Jesus-loving Christians.
We were looking at that Scripture:
Philippians 4:6,7 Don’t worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplications with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Great. So we discussed it, prodded and poked it, and we were about to move on when the Bible study leader summarised with the discussion: “Well that’s good, but we’re all still going to worry, aren’t we?”
At that point, I couldn’t help myself, so I shouted out NO! They all stared at me, waiting for an explanation.
It seems to me that when we come to one of these Scriptures, many of us know all too well that we just want to skate on past over the surface, without digging deeper.
What it actually says is that if, instead of worrying … in fact, if we took the time that we would have spent worrying and used it instead to pour our problems out to God with a grateful heart, He promises to guard our hearts and minds with a peace in Christ that, from a human perspective, just doesn’t make sense.
I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a pretty good deal to me!
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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