Read: Philippians 4:5-9
Do not be anxious about anything. (v. 6)
I was seven years old when I experienced my first panic attack. Due to trauma, I had a fear of dying, and one night I thought I was going to die. That panic attack led to years of therapy revealing how my overthinking led to tremendous anxiety about everything. Still, I felt no peace until, eventually, as an adult, I discovered how to let go and go to God.
We suffer when we worry. In this passage, Paul provides us with an invitation for living a life marked by God’s peace: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation . . . present your requests to God” (v. 6 NIV). God understands we are prone to fear, and when he calls us to a life free from worry, he equips us with what we’ll need. Communicating with him is a powerful way to shift burdens and worry from our shoulders to his hands, and the act of spending time talking with him is peace-giving in itself. Truly, committing everything in prayer to God leads to peace (vv. 6-7). Our peace is not because God gives us all we ask for but because communion with God reminds us of all that he’s done for us.
Laying down our worry and suffering and coming to God with requests and thanksgiving and practicing a life marked by his peace can be summed up in one word: abide. As we abide in God and experience greater reaches of his peace, we are stripped of barriers that once held us back from him. We are free from suffering.
As you pray, give God your worries.
Ariana D. Den Bleyker is a Pittsburgh native currently residing in New York’s Hudson Valley. She is the author of two devotional poetry collections,To Be Held by the Lightand Waking in the Light. She is an ordained deacon in the Reformed Church of America.
