Driving Where?

Philippians 4: 6-7   Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God; 7 and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

This passage in my favorite Bible is going to melt through to the next from all the ink I have laid all over it. The Lord continues to give me this passage throughout seasons in my life; a front porch prayer this morning over big things, seemed small when He brings to remembrance the passage above. Big worldly problems, big decisions, or whatever we face seem small through the lens of eternity. Overwhelming anxiousness is replaced by glimpses of understanding of the power of a sovereign God in the details of our lives. Satan wins the war in worry, he is defeated in Philippians 4:6-7 by the power of God in our souls.

The context of Paul’s letter, his epistle while under duress, gives new meaning to the power of the peace he speaks of. Paul suffered likely greater that we even read of; beatings, shipwrecks, hunger, and even the imprisonment from which he writes. Paul quoted the most mis-used passage in the Bible (Phil.4:13 I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength), while in prison. Paul was speaking of contentment, not excelling at any given sport, trial in life, challenge set before us, but to be content with the tough things in life. Paul was speaking of how to handle the difficult, of how to see the sovereign hand of God letting him be on life’s path at the current place in his life. Paul was content in the highs, and many lows, but sought to draw glory to God through all of them.

Where do you go, what do you turn to, whom do you turn to when life gets tough? Is it some substance, some place, or someone? Do you hid from your trials, or mask them from others, or lay them at the feet of Jesus? He knows your struggles, knows your sins, and yet he still loved you enough to die for you so that you may gain the paradise that he is preparing for you. The peace that comes with a heart that seeks him, is the peace that Paul writes of; the peace that comes from prayer and time in God’s Word, for the world only produces the anxieties that drive us away from it.