When Peace turns to Panic...Pause and Pray

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 (NIV)

God’s word teaches we are not to be anxious about anything.  That can be difficult if we don’t understand the root of anxiety.  Anxiety is caused by fear and throughout God’s word we are told “fear not”.  Fear drowns your faith.  It overwhelms your mind and hijacks your emotions to a point where the only thing you can focus on is what you fear.  You can’t believe God’s promises and have fear in your heart at the same time.  We must fight fear with prayers of faith.  Prayers of faith will pull down the invisible and make it visible.  The Lord tells us in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, to present our request to Him.  What are your prayers and petitions today?  Do you have any specific needs or are you going to God on behalf of another with their specific needs?  When we pray, we are choosing to bring burdens and needs to the Lord.  In humility we acknowledge our inability coupled with His great ability and we trust in His love towards us.  God says He will not only accept but honor our humility when we go to Him according to His word casting our cares on Him because we know in our hearts that He cares for us!

God says when we find ourselves stressed out, worried or having anxiety, we are supposed to pray.  Usually that is the last thing our natural man wants to do.  The fleshy side of us tends to feed on the drama.  Instead of meditating on God’s word, we meditate on our problems, we even meditation on other people’s problems!  When we meditate on any problems long enough, we start talking about problems.  Notice the Lord doesn’t tell us to pray and then we can go tell everyone what we are praying about.  He said pray…and be thankful.  We are supposed to be thanking God for the answer.  That’s it!  Jesus said when you pray believe you receive, and you will have what you prayed for.  That is really the only discussion we need to be having with ourselves and others.  We should be confessing God has heard our petition and our expectations are high!  A song of praise should be coming out of our mouths after we have taken our concerns to the Lord not a woe is me dirge!  God says with thanksgiving we are supposed to present our request to Him.  Why would we do that?  Because we know that He hears us and loves us and we know that when we ask according to His will, we have what we have asked for.  We are supposed to thank God for hearing and answering our prayers even while we are still praying.  We should never walk away from our prayer time wondering...we need to KNOW.  Let prayer melt away your anxieties by taking the situation out of your hands and putting it into the hands of your Lord.  No matter where you find yourself today, take both your needs and your worries to the Lord and leave them with Him.  He knows how to care for you.  When you feel your peace start turning to panic…pause and pray.

From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord his God. ~Jonah 2:1 (NIV)

What are your prayers and petitions today? What specific needs have you brought to the Lord?

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