Rejoice in the Lord
Philippians 4:4-7 reads:
"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice! Let your gentle [spirit] be known to all people. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and pleading with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”
The world today seems to be strongly encouraging everyone to do and feel exactly the opposite of this. It is impossible to look at social media without seeing lots of stories about the anxiety that people are feeling. Many of our news stories seem to be based around the premise that this is yet another thing that we need to be worried about. The idea that we have anything to rejoice about is seen as strange or unconvincing to those who do not believe.
We have great cause to REJOICE!!! Our God loves us so much he sent His Son to die so that we might be free. Jesus came and lived among us and showed us the way that we are to live with one another in peace and harmony. We know that our loving God listens to our prayers and hears our pleas, and for this we are thankful.
People seem to be commenting more and more often that they feel like their lives, their situation, the world around them are all out of their control. Actually, they are right. Many of the things that affect us everyday are things we can’t make better, or worse. Matthew 6:27 asks retorically “And which of you by worrying can add a single day to his life’s span?” We are in that same boat as the rest of the world, we don’t have control over everything around us, and that can be scary.
What is different, in this as in everything in our lives as Christians, is God. We know that we can bring our challenges to Him in prayer with thanksgiving. We know that He hears those prayers, and that He has the power to change everything. We also know that He has the wisdom to know what we REALLY need and what we THINK we need. For all these reasons, we can have peace. We can surrender our worries and our cares to our Father to take care of, and we can have peace in the knowledge that an all-knowing and all-loving God can resolve them far better than we can imagine.
This doesn’t make any sense. The world can’t understand how submitting ourselves to God’s wisdom and care can lead to peace and joy. They can’t comprehend how acknowledging that we aren’t in control, that we can’t be in control is not only okay, it is beautiful. This is what it means to have the peace of God guarding our hearts and minds, and it is the only way reliable way to have peace in this time, or any other.
Lance
image from www.heartlight.org