Tuesday, July 1, 2025
Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7 CSB
Anything and Everything
Do not worry about anything… that means anything! Paul begins this passage with a command, not a suggestion. Worrying about anything is honestly not our place. This weight of taking care of all the things belongs to God. We are not wise enough, good enough, or powerful enough to take care of everything on our own. That is why Paul tells us to give it to God.
But in everything… that means everything! Everything is what we should pray about. Everything is allowed and requested from him. There is not one area of our life that he does not care about or have total control over. He wants us to bring everything to him.
Prayer and petition are two different aspects of prayer. Prayer is a blanket term for all our communication with God. To petition God means to ask for something specific, or to ask God to do something. There is so much power in prayer and sometimes we never tap into it. We often don’t ask God for anything, maybe because we don’t believe he will answer or even hear us at all. But here he is asking us to present our requests to him. There are times we don’t pray because we don’t know what to say. And there are times we don’t pray because our heart is too heavy to even utter his name. He sees all of this. He knows what is making our hearts heavy and the Holy Spirit will intervene on our behalf when we can’t pray or don’t know what to say. No matter how unworthy or unvaluable or unimportant you feel you are, or your requests are, take them to him anyway. He wants to know them all. When your heart is heavy and you cannot even speak, just sit in his presence. He will cover you and wrap you up in his presence, providing comfort and peace – a gift that comes from trusting God completely.
And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
For Today Remember This…
Peace can be hard to find with all that is going on in this world today. Then add on top of all that the normal things that happen in life along with the things that are specific to each person’s life and circumstances. Some days it is hard to hand it over to God and let it go. I would argue that I do trust God and know he is always working for my good, but I still struggle with stress over all the things that put pressure on me because I don’t let go. There is no possible way to know the outcome of our circumstances. Yes, we can try to manipulate the outcome in some ways – or so we think. Ultimately God is in control and the only way we ever find peace is bringing it all to him, through prayer and petition, with thanksgiving and letting it go.
Besides truly letting go, the ”with thanksgiving” tag is really the key. We do spend a lot more time on asking God to do things and focusing on what he hasn’t answered yet. And honestly, on the hard days, that with thanksgiving part is harder. We are called to be in a posture of humility, while also remaining thankful in all things. We can do this because no matter what, we know we can trust him with anything and everything.
