Rest, relax

Philippians 4: [6] Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.

[7] And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Preacher Norman B. Harrison said many years ago in a famous sermon outline, “Be careful for nothing, be prayerful for everything, be thankful for anything.”

That’s the attitude to have. I’m careful for nothing, meaning I’m not worried and full of care about anything. Things aren’t the issue in my life, says Richard Jordan.

I’m prayerful about everything; I’m living my life under the constant scrutiny of examining what’s going on in light of what God says.

And then in everything give thanks. When you do that, the peace OF God. I think about that. What do words mean: “The peace OF God.” The peace that belongs to God. God’s own calm, still, restful heart. Understand, God is at peace today. He’s not worried about anything. He’s not upset. He’s not, “Oh whew, whew, wonder what they’re going to do down there.”

I love the word “rest.” Faith rests, because faith is simply resting. The first time rest appears in the Bible it’s after six days of working, making creation, and on the seventh day He rested. He said, “It’s done. The work’s finished. The purpose for which I’ve labored these six days to accomplish, this creation, now I’m going to enter into it; I’m going to enjoy it.”

In that rest that God has--that confidence that God has, that calm, restful heart--can be your personal profession. God filling your heart with His own divine stillness—the peace of God.

It’s interesting when you look at verse 9: [9] Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you. You see, it’s the God of peace who gives you the peace of God.

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By the way, the word “anxiety” and the word “anger” come from the same root, and they’re all connected with fear.

How do you get away from that? How do you stop that? You know, Christian people worry about strange things. We worry about different things than the world does, but we worry about them nonetheless.

Again Paul says, “In every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.”

Instead of being careful about things, we’re to be prayerful, meaning we’re going to talk to God about them. Instead of being filled with unrest inside, I’m to talk to God about these things.

The “everything” answers to the “nothing.” No thing over here is to be something that I be anxious, worried and full of care about, troubled about in my spirit, because EVERYTHING over here I’m talking to God about. Do you get that? That’s great.

But you know one of the strangest things to me is that Christian people read that verse and one of the things they worry about the most is their prayer life. That’s a truth; you know it is.

“What should we pray for? How should we pray?” Everything goes haywire when you’re worried about prayer. Listen, if you’re worrying about how to pray in your prayer life, forget about not worrying about everything else. Because you’ve just jettisoned the thing that keeps you from worrying about everything else.

The way you war on worry is being prayerful for everything and thankful in anything. But if you’re going to worry about whether you’re praying right, you just lost it. And I tell you, folks, people do that.

Let me say this: Relax. There is no wrong way to pray in the dispensation of grace. There are some uninformed ways to pray, but you’re not going to make God mad at you if you say the wrong thing when you’re praying. Because you know what? You’re going to say the wrong thing. Relax.