From Worry to Prayer: God's Peace That Guards

Not anxious about anything, pray about everything. That's the great exchange. Every worry becomes a prayer. Every fear becomes a conversation. Every what if, oh no, becomes, Lord, help. Worry and prayer are both forms of meditation. You know, you have sort of a little voice inside your head that you sometimes have conversations with. And some of you right now are saying, don't have a voice like that inside my head. That's the voice inside your head. Right? You have a little voice inside your head. Worry is that little voice rehearsing your fear, and prayer is that little voice rehearsing who God is. [00:31:50] (46 seconds)  #PrayNotWorry

Christian joy is rooted in this person. It's rooted in a person and not in a situation. And that's why Paul can rejoice, not from denialism, but from realism while he's in prison. He knows that his circumstances are terrible, but Christ is risen. In other words, Easter is still true. The grave is still empty. Christ is still reigning. Christ is still with him. And so for Paul, therefore, every other aspect of the circumstance becomes obsolete. It's no longer the driving determining factor. If joy is rooted in Christ, then joy becomes possible anywhere at any time. [00:26:15] (44 seconds)  #JoyInChrist

You hear the metaphor behind that phrase? It's a military metaphor, guarding, standing guard, standing watch. And remember that as Paul writes these words, he is in prison being guarded. And he says, as he's surrounded by Roman guards, God's peace will guard you. God's peace will stand watch over you. God's peace will protect your heart. God's peace will protect your mind. It's not a promise that your situation will change. It's not a promise that problems will disappear, but it's something deeper. He says, God's peace will stand guard over you. [00:33:30] (48 seconds)  #PeaceGuards

The Greek word for anxiety paints a picture of being pulled in lots of different directions at one time. I I almost thought about if we could illustrate this, and I was gonna have a volunteer come up and then four people to each grab a limb move the opposite direction. Right? I have that sense of being pulled and stretched in different directions, and that's what worry feels like. It feels like my mind is in tomorrow, my heart is in yesterday, my body is here today. All the different parts of me are in different spaces and and I'm completely divided. Anxiety fractures the soul. [00:30:36] (36 seconds)  #AnxietyFractures

Whatever is happening, he says, I have learned to be content. And that word learn should be extremely hopeful for all of us. He learned it. Contentment isn't just personality. Some of us say, well, that person is just more chill by nature. Right? Nothing can faze that cat. They're just chill all the time. It's not temperament. It's not natural. It's learned. It's possible to learn peace. Paul says, I know what it is to be a need. I know what it is to have plenty. I've learned the secret of both, and I can be content in any and every situation. So in other words, he's practiced it. He's worked at it. He's given effort to it. [00:38:50] (44 seconds)  #LearnedContentment

And so this is what he's learned. He says, so therefore I can do all things through him who gives me strength. So incredibly overused, misused text. It didn't help the UConn team at all when they came up against Michigan, did it? I can do all things. This isn't about employing a prayer to get God out of my side for whatever objective I have. This is about surviving hardship and pain and disaster. The all things for Paul refers to hunger. Hunger so deep and so nine that you can't fall asleep at night. And abundance surrounded by friends, tables overflowing with feast, Hardship and comfort. Both of them can rob our joy. [00:39:30] (54 seconds)  #AllThingsThroughChrist

And so Paul is telling us two things when we're anxious. Two things that we tend to filter out when we become highly dangerous and in hard situations. He's telling you, you are not alone. You're not alone. And this moment, this circumstance, this feeling is not the end of the story. When anxiety rises, we tend to feel abandoned. We tend to feel like we're in this on our own. We have to solve our own way out, and we can feel like the future is out of control. And in one short sentence, Paul counters both of those fears. The Lord is here. You're not alone, and the Lord is coming. This is not the end of the story. [00:29:05] (51 seconds)  #YouAreNotAlone

Mental health science tells us that there are two conditions that create optimal anxiety for human beings. One is if I'm in situations that I can't control, and the other is if I'm in situations that I can't predict. If I can control what I can't predict, I can do okay. If I can predict what I can't control, I can still do okay. I can brace for the impact. But if I can't control and I can't predict, human anxiety is elevated like nothing else. That's the circumstance that Paul is in. [00:20:16] (36 seconds)  #UncertaintyBreedsAnxiety