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.”
That great theologian, Erma Bombeck once said:
“Worry is like a rocking chair: it gives you something to do but never gets you anywhere.”
The truth is worry is worthless. It’s stewing without doing. It can’t change your past or your future, it just wastes time today. If you’ve been living in the wasteland of worry, God offers you a way out! God offers a promise of peace for everything that makes you anxious. Rather than just telling us not to worry, the Bible tells us what to do instead. Replace your worries with prayer.
The news gets even better. You can pray about everything! There’s not a concern too big or a care too small that you can’t pray about. Whatever causes you to worry can become a prayer target for you to pray. If it’s big enough to worry about, it’s big enough to pray about. Turn your worries into prayer targets and watch God handle them one by one! Your whole attitude will lighten up and your faith will thrive as you release your anxieties to God’s care and control and experience His promise of peace!
God is offering you a choice today. You can worry or you can pray. When you pray you are giving God your worries and letting Him meet your needs. He’s big enough for the job. Make a list of the things that cause you to worry today and then commit that list to God in prayer. When you do, here’s the promise God offers you – “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.” (Philippians 4:7)
You can escape the wasteland of worry. Claim His promise of peace today! After you tell God what you need, thank Him for all He has done. Thanksgiving is a declaration of faith that shifts our mind’s attention from our worries to God’s faithfulness. When you choose to live in the promised land of peace, God will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus.I love the way The Message paraphrases this verse.
“Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the centre of your life.”
Let me leave you with a wonderful saying a friend gave me many years ago. She said, “When you give God a job, don’t take it back again!” She was referring to how we so often commit a problem to God in prayer and ask Him to deal with it for us, then we effectively take the job back again by worrying about it! Let’s decide today that when we give God a job, we will trust Him with it and stay out of the wasteland of worry!