Philippians 4:6-7
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus.
There is just so much here. Every word in these two verses is just amazing to me.
First of all, Be anxious for nothing. How can one even do that? Anxious for nothing? I’m anxious just thinking about that. Will things still get done if I am not anxious about stuff? But in those little words, I feel like God is placing His hand on my shoulder and saying, “Just calm down now.”
But in everything – yes, everything. Yes, that other thing too.
By prayer and supplication – interesting, this separated prayer and supplication. According to the dictionary, supplicate means “to ask for earnestly and humbly” and “to make humble entreaty, to pray to God.” So prayer and supplication mean sort of the same thing, but I think that the repetition here is more to remind me to let my prayers not only be about asking for favors. My prayer is my part in my relationship with God. Let it include true communication, sharing of my heart and reception of His. When there is asking to be done, let it be done humbly. I guess that means as part of that back and forth communication and not as bossing God around. (As a mom, I’m pretty good at directing people, a.k.a. bossing around.)
With thanksgiving – How telling is it of me that when I recite this verse I almost always forget this phrase? Then I get to the end and it feels like it was too short so I go back and realize my mistake. That about sums up my life. I always forget the thanksgiving part. But that is part of the prayer, part of the relationship laid out on this verse.
Let your requests be made known to God – There’s that praying thing again. But it restates that we can ask, request of him. Here is the tricky part for me on this one: I can pray for my children, my husband, my friends, but I slow down when it comes to my own desires. Those count too.
And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension – Go back to that anxiety part at the beginning of this verse. How does it feel now? God’s peace is more than we could ever understand or grasp and…
Will guard your heart and mind – The words “peace” and “guard” just don’t seem to go together well. If peace is going to be doing something, it seems like it would be a lot more passive than guarding. But this is God’s peace, which we just found out we cannot understand. This peace guards our hearts and minds when we are in communication (prayer and supplication) with God. This surrounds our hearts and keeps away the anxiety, or helps us to recognize it and hand it back over.
In Christ Jesus – Through Him, with Him, in Him. The whole of His life, death, and resurrection is here. We walk through that to communicate with Him.
*Just a reminder, this is no official teaching, this is just my take on one verse, how I kind of pray my way through it and meditate on it.