Philippians 4:4-9
“Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again – Rejoice! Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember the Lord is coming soon.
Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.
And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me – everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.”
In many ways, this passage has been haunting me lately. It seems that the personal experiences and conflicts that God is using to stir up my life from the inside out, continuously bring me back to this passage of scripture. No matter what the circumstances, these words of encouragement give me hope. The thing I like most about what Paul says in these verses is that he doesn’t just say have God’s peace in your lives but he tells you how to achieve it. For the size of the passage, it contains a lot of direction. Every time I read it, I have found myself uplifted. With every reading my mind has been opened to how this applies to my life, today.
In verse six it says “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need.” Well that is easy enough- I can pray, especially about the things I’m worried about. Tell God what I need? No problem. But there is an important part of that passage that is missing. If we read it in completion it says, “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.” Did you catch that last part? “Thank him for all he has done.” Sometimes I forget this part when I pray. I spend all my time with God, telling him about my worries and my needs that I forget to thank him for what he has already done. Just something to think about…
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2 comments:
Tiffany,
I am an Int'l Mission Board missionary in Kiev from Kings Mills. Liz Veal asked me to contact you. I noticed by your pictures you trained at CBN. if you get back there let me know I live very close to CBN.
Bonnie Hailey, bbhailey@pobox.com
Wow Tiff such deep thinking to make one ponder - you're right though we can do all of that but do we stop to thank him. ironically speaking just last Sunday we had a bonfire for the teens & we had a couple of people speak and I thanked God for my friends despite all that I am going through because God gave me friends who pray for me, encourage me and uplift me. So thanking God through it all is so important.
May God bless you and keep you
Janie
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