Hey friends, just want to encourage you straight from Scripture. Philippians 4:6, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

You know, Paul is a man who knew persecution, who knew heartaches, who knew to have an abundance and then to have little. Yet this man was a man who knew not only Scripture, he knew the Lord. And here he is speaking to you and I, and he said, “Be anxious for nothing”, meaning even in circumstances and things that don’t make sense to you, or you say “I don’t know”. “But in everything,” he says, “by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving.”

You know, sometimes, we can call out to the Lord and we say, “I am praying and I am seeking God. And I am doing everything I know.” And God honours that. But there is something about wanting to give thanksgiving and whose letting their requests be made known to God, but it’s from a place of “Lord, I thank You. You are going to make a way for me. I thank You that You are my Provider. I thank You that You are my Healer.” And now my position is no longer begging God; but it’s thanking God for who He already is and what Scripture already says He will do and perform.

We go on and it says, “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” I love this, that if I am tying in, not to – allowing anxiety and fear and just being afraid – to “grip me” and rule over me, but actually, in everything I'm going to offer my request to God with thanksgiving, then what happens is the peace of God will come.

The peace of God which “surpasses all understanding”, which actually goes beyond what my mind can comprehend, what my eyes can see, and it now guards my heart from being overwhelmed: my soul, my mind, my emotions. And it also will guard my mind from meditating on all the worst-case scenarios, if you will, and it will allow me to walk in the peace of God.  

There's something about being connected to Him that says, “I'm not going to be anxious for anything. And it doesn't mean we are not looking at the circumstances around us. And we are not saying that there isn’t things or there are not things that are reality, but it is to say that we're connecting with heaven and we are doing what He says. I'm going to rejoice. I'm going to give thanksgiving. I'm going to look to God. And from there, I thank You, Lord. It's going to guard my heart, my mind in Christ Jesus. Therefore, peace can be my song. Peace can be that which Jesus has said in John chapter 14, “My peace I give to you.” He gave it to you as a gift. So you and I have to make a choice to receive it and allow for it to remain there. And even as we read in Colossians as well before, let it rule and reign.

God bless you. I pray that you are encouraged, keep going forward, keep staying full of faith, in Jesus’ name.