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

–Philippians 4:6-7

Doesn’t it sound amazing to live with complete peace? Anxiety has the power to absolutely drain the life out of you. Believe me…I speak from personal experience. There are tons of people in the world that take medication just for that very purpose. Here in the Bible we have a very interesting and encouraging cure for anxiety that many know about but  few practice.

“Do not be anxious about anything….”

Isn’t Paul being just a bit naive? Do you know anyone who isn’t anxious about anything? Paul isn’t saying this as a suggestion but as a command. I hate to admit it but this is not one of the commands in Scripture that I tend to take very seriously. I tend to assume that anxiety is just a part of life and not really a sin that I struggle with.

“but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

That’s a lot of praying. I don’t know if I really want to pray that much. If I prayed for even half the amount of time that I spend worrying, it would be completely life-changing. I struggle with being thankful when I pray. I believe our brains are just bent to see more of the negative stuff in our lives than to praise God for his goodness to us. One of the things that we must believe if we are going to pray like this is that God cares deeply about us. We can begin to assume that he doesn’t based on our perception of our experiences but this is not the truth. The truth is that he died for you and loves you more than you can comprehend.

“And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” 

That sounds incredible doesn’t it? To walk around each day with a blanket of peace covering you. I don’t know many people that come anywhere close to this. We have a choice before us don’t we? We can either choose to worry and fret when the Bible calls us to pray or we can be obedient to this passage. The common sense option is to be obedient to this passage but that is certainly not the norm. My challenge to myself and to all of us is that we would choose to be some of the few who walk through life with a perpetual sense of peace. Paul was not just blowing smoke when he wrote these verses down. Will we have the courage and the audacity to believe him?