Prayer, Supplication, Thanksgiving

Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known unto God.  And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7

How may we obtain the ‘peace of God, which passes all understanding?’  God has given us a means for obtaining it.  Paul writes, ‘in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God.’  What are the things in life about which we may become anxious?  What makes us worry?  We may worry about the past, the present or the future.  We may worry about things which are physical, mental, spiritual or social.  We may worry about ourselves or about others.  We may worry about the known or the unknown.  About how many of these things can we pray?  The short answer is, all of them.  There is nothing about which we may worry that is not something about which we can pray.  We, as the Body of Christ, can communicate constantly to our Living Head what we are experiencing and how it makes us feel.  We pray in a general sense, offer supplications about specific items and offer thanks for all that comes from the hand of a loving God.  This makes prayer the means of our coping with what worries us.  This is the answer to, ‘what am I going to do about…?’  Prayer is the recourse we have when the worries of life press in.  God has given us prayer as the practical means of addressing the things that worry us most.

Our Wise and Gracious God,
we rejoice that You have afforded us this means of grace.
We praise You that as we pray
we know that You will hear us
and answer according to Your will.