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
Human nature is to worry about the things that we care about. Most people would naturally worry if something were to happen to their health, their job, their family, or so many other things in life. The Bible has very clear direction when it comes to things that might cause us to start to worry: don’t do it!
In our focus verse for today, it says be careful for nothing. In other words, do not worry or be anxious about one single thing. When we worry it drags our minds into one direction or another, away from where we should be focused. The verse goes on to say but to handle everything in prayer. Talk about two complete opposites. One being worry and the other giving the idea of faith that God will handle the situation.
That is exactly what it is thought, the complete opposite situation. While it may cause concern, we should take it and lay it out before God in prayer. In fact, it goes on to say the word “supplication” immediately after prayer. This refers to the attitude of our request to God. While we often talk about kneeling before God, this word supplication has the concept behind it that the person making the request bows completely to the ground holding to the feet of the one they are asking of.
Think about the humility behind that. It takes a lot of humility to completely surrender yourself to someone in such a manner. But that’s exactly what God is looking for! It shows our complete reliance and trust in Him that He can take care of our needs and cares to hear about our wants and desires. If you think about that for a moment, it would be hard to worry about something if you were that completely submitted to someone like God, wouldn’t it?
We have so many things in life that want to cause us to worry, but we should not be worried. We have a God that cares about us and wants to take care of us. He just wants to hear it from us, not from a position of reservation, but from a position of dedication. That’s where verse 7 comes into the picture where it says, “And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” We can never reach that level of peace without completely surrendering our worry to Him.