Philippians 4:4-8 4 Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice! 5 Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon.
6 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. 7 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.
8 And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.
I wasn't planning on it, but this could be "part 2" to a devotional I posted a couple of days ago called, "If You're Thankful and You Know it". If you read it and remember, I talked about the importance of thankfulness and how it can change a bad day and a bad attitude into a good one. Same goes for this verse, only it doesn't stop at thankfulness. Instead it launches us into a whole new thought process. Not only are we supposed to pray and ask for things with an already thankful heart, but we aren't even supposed to think the negative thoughts that so easily come to mind. Somebody does something that bothers us and instead of dwelling on it, we must actively cast those thoughts out of our minds and start thinking good things. This is not easy to do. I struggle with it, actually. It's so much easier and so wickedly gratifying to be annoyed with people and to justify our sinful thoughts toward them because they sinned against us in some way, shape or form.
And what about the part that says, "Be anxious for nothing..." Easier said than done for most of us, but we have got to try. Pray about it, seriously. I know I feel dumb coming to God everyday with my worries and stress because I know I should trust Him by now. It's like I enter into the presence of God and say, "Hi, it's me again. I found something new to worry about...Actually, it's not new. I worry about this a lot. I know you told me not to, but I'm doing it anyway." It feels stupid, right? But you know what is even more stupid? Hanging onto the anxiety that He already knows we are having. It's not like we can hide it from God merely by not praying about it. And not only can we not hide it, but by not confessing our anxiety and surrendering the control to God, we aren't able to get the "peace that transcends all understanding that guards our hearts and minds." Maybe we think that coming to God everyday with our puny little problems inconvenience Him, that He gets annoyed with us. I'm here to tell you that is not true. Yes, He takes care of the whole world and the whole universe, but to put stipulations on God, to think He is too busy to care about you and to help you is making God smaller than He is. He is a personal God and He cares very much for you and about you. You are not a bother to Him and you are not capable of inconveniencing Him. He is all-knowing and He is omnipresent. You are never calling Him away from something more important. He can take care of my problems and your problems and keep a nation from destroying itself all at the same time. You are not unimportant. He can't wait to hear you cry out to Him so He can shower His blessings onto you. So, don't be anxious and think about awesome stuff all the time.
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