Do not be anxious about anything,
but in every situation, by prayer and petition,
with thanksgiving,
present your requests to God.
And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding,
will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:6-7
Life sometimes catches us off guard.
Even knowing trouble will come — Jesus gave us a heads up in John 16:33: “…in this world you will have trouble…” — it sometimes throws us for a loop.
When enduring hard things, my go-to verse, the one that allows me to both receive and release encouragement and peace, is Philippians 4:6-7.
Read that verse above again … slowly this time. Make it your prayer. Ask God to help you believe it and live it.
When life happens, when you are blindsided by trouble or difficulty, look to Paul’s recipe for peace: we pray and He provides.
Sometimes He calms the storm, but other times, He just keeps the believer calm within the storm. Life can bring a hurricane raging around us, yet it is possible to be peaceful and calm in the middle — living and abiding in the peace and calm of His watchful eye.
I like to call Philippians 4:6-7 the “trade up” passage: we give Him the anxiety and the worry, and in exchange we get His peace. It’s illogical. It’s unlikely. It’s counter-cultural. But, God … With Him, all things are possible. With God, we can have the peace that “transcends all understanding” — that blows your mind. You can’t get this from the world. Only from God.
When you trade with God, you always trade up!
From a human perspective, this peace is incomprehensible. It’s something the world cannot manufacture and cannot even understand. It comes only from Him. And when God blesses us with His peace, it becomes our own personal spiritual “force field,” protecting our hearts and our minds (precisely where we are most vulnerable to fear and anxiety).
Are your circumstances today anything but peaceful? Do you long for peace in your home, your life, your relationships, and your heart? Will you take time — make time — to draw near to Jesus? Will you choose to bring that anxiety-riddled, gut-wrenching, heart-breaking dilemma before Him? Whether your burden is relational, medical, financial, spiritual, or something else, follow Paul’s advice: “present your requests to God.”
As we choose to let go of our difficult circumstance and let Him have it, we are freed from the burden of fixing it, carrying it, and trying to change it. We trust Him with it. We give Him the fear and anxiety, and in exchange, we receive His peace. What a trade!
He makes it possible to receive His peace and to walk in peace.
You are most likely familiar with the poem, Footsteps in the Sand, that tells the story of someone who dreams of walking along a beach with God as scenes from her life pass before her. In some places she sees two sets of footprints, but in others, only one. The poem ends with, “The years when you have seen only one set of footprints, my child, is when I carried you.”
You may have had this on a poster in your college dorm room. Perhaps you’ve shared a beautiful beach scene featuring some of the words with your Facebook friends.
Many of you could give powerful testimony from your life, demonstrating when the Lord carried you. I could do the same. Those were sweet, precious times of peace.
But if you’re like me, there are also some seasons where the picture of your life’s journey would sometimes include one set of footprints and a big smudge alongside: those are the times God was dragging me where I am reluctant to go!
As we know Him better, we love Him more. We learn to trust Him and follow where He leads. No matter what we walk through, good or bad, He is always with us. He promised to never leave us and never forsake us, and our Savior is trustworthy. We can give Him the worries and have peace even when our circumstances feel anything but peaceful. If we have Him, we have all we need.
Those hard times are precious because they make us ever more dependent upon God, more desperate for Him.
We can walk in peace, because He walks with us.
We can walk through anything knowing that He is our reality … that 0ur circumstances are fleeting, but Jesus is our constant, and eternity with Him is our destiny.
To know Jesus is to know peace. When there is no Jesus, there is no real peace.
Have you got peace?
Hold on! Hold fast! Hold tight!
Those might be phrases we use to exhort those we love as they face the new battles life brings. Our Write the WORD bookmark for May includes 31 verses — all including the word, HOLD. You can get your copy of the bookmark from our Downloads page, along with the optional S.O.A.P. Bible study pages, our monthly Do It! List, and more.
We’re overjoyed by the response to the Write the WORD workshop Laura presented in Northwest Arkansas at the end of March. So many have accepted the challenge and are experiencing the blessing of writing the WORD each day! To inquire about Laura bringing this workshop to your group, please email us today!
Two of my favorite verses!
Mine, too!