6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
- Why do you guard things? What do the things you guard have in
common? - What does anxiety do to your heart and mind?
- How does thanksgiving influence our worry-related prayers?
- Where in life do you turn to God?
- after your plans fall apart
- when all is lost
- when you can do no more on your own
- after you have given it your best shot and failed
- before the plans, during the worry, after the peace comes
I can quote this passage, but I continually struggle to do it. Pride, American self-reliance, whatever the "reason", it is still a struggle. While I see the command in verse 6, the motivation for me is in verse 7. My worry puts my heart and mind at risk. I think about the previous post where worry is mentioned immediately before the devil roaming to find someone to devour. When worry is strong enough, I (perhaps you also) turn to something for comfort. Too often it is not God. The key to this seems to be pray about the little things all day long. Pray about things that I truly can take care of on my on. Let praying about the little worries build up a coating on my heart and mind, layer after layer after layer. Then when the big struggle hits... No worries, mate. :-)
1 comment:
Part of my problem is the prayer issue. Worry is easy, prayer is more difficult. When I find time to pray, often it seems my mind is a jumble of items that make it seem as though my prayer was fruitless and disjointed. I see the problems with worry and the links to a good prayer life. Perhaps, Harold, you could at some point go to some musings on prayer help...Thanks as always for the encouragement...
Post a Comment