Be Anxious for Nothing: Pray Through Everything
“Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God" (Philippians 4:6-7).
The simple application of this verse is this:
Being anxious for nothing by praying through everything.
Paul does not scold the anxious heart. In the believer, anxiety is a spiritual signal. It tells me where the weight of my trust has shifted. From God’s almightiness to my fleshly strength. From holy providence to unholy spiraling. When anxiety rises in my life, something has moved from God’s hands into mine. My soul has begun to carry what it was never built to bear.
Anxiety is the mind rehearsing the future without God. Prayer is the soul returning the future to its Keeper. The flesh imagines outcomes. The spirit entrusts them to God.
Notice Paul’s totality. In every thing. There is no category too small, concern too ordinary, or fear too repetitive. The anxious heart often disqualifies itself to both faith and prayer by worry. I think I hear God saying, This is too petty. This again?! And I tell myself, “I should be over this by now.” But the Spirit through the pen of Paul says, If it troubles you, it belongs to Me. If it presses on your mind, it is already in My hand.
“Prayer, supplication, thanksgiving.” Three things:
Prayer is the act of turning my cares God-ward.
Supplication is giving need a voice.
Thanksgiving is the anchor that keeps prayer from crashing against the rocks of despair.
All three tell my soul that the God who hears has already acted, already provided, already been faithful. It steadies my soul by firmly rooting my need into the soil of the character and promises of Christ.
For me, anxiety tends to be circular. It goes over the same ground again and again, never arriving. Prayer interrupts the cycle. Taking my cares to Christ is linear. It has a line of direction. It moves outward, then upward, away from the closed loop of my own mind. It interrupts anxiety’s endless rehearsal with a real audience, a living God, a listening Father.
If only I could take my own advice.
Being “careful or anxious for nothing” is an open hand in prayer. “Let your requests be made known unto God” is confessing my dependence. To speak my needs to God is to admit my weakness, confessing creatureliness. In doing so, I will not excuse my anxiety by calling it responsibility. True prayer exposes my unbelief mixed with fear, or my fear mixed with unbelief. Gentle unbelief, perhaps, but unbelief nonetheless.
And then there is the beautiful promise that follows, “And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” Instead of removing all question marks, peace is the period after each request. It rests in loving Providences, both dark and light. Now peace stands watch over my concerns. Anxiety leaves the gates open. Prayer closes it, shutting my heart in with a merciful and sovereign God.
To be anxious for nothing is to fill my mouth with words to God. To pray through everything is to refuse to let a single fear go unspoken, a single burden go unoffered. It is releasing tomorrow back where it belongs, into the hands of Him who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
The anxious man in me tries to see the whole path before I step. The peaceful man is asking for light upon the next step. The old man in me lives bent over the future. The praying man walks looking to the Creator of heaven and earth, my Savior. And in that looking, peace comes as a gift to the dependent.
Help Lord!