Prayer with Thanksgiving > Anxiety and Worry

6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. - Philippians 4:6-7

I don't know about you, but there are many times I struggle with not being anxious. I know I’m not alone because there are psychology textbooks that are devoted entirely to this issue, people all across the country are taking medication to deal with their anxiety, and the research community continues to analyze the reasons and effects of worry. One such study was done by Dr. Walter Calvert, and here’s what he found:

• 40% of what you worry about will not happen (that's almost half! Almost half of your worries are never going to happen in the first place!)
• 30% of your worries concern the past (does anybody else find this ridiculous? What are you going to do about it? It's the past!)

***For those keeping score, 70% of your worries aren't going to happen or you can't do anything about!

• 12% of your worries are unfounded health issues (have any of you ever worried yourself back into health?)
• 10% of your worries are insignificant and petty issues
• Which leaves only 8% of your worries having actual legitimate concerns...8%!

Pretty shocking statistics! They certainly don’t resemble the trust in God that Paul advocates in our passage. And even though Dr. Calvert says 8% of our worries are legitimate, I think the Word of God says otherwise!

Here’s the good news - Paul tells us there is an answer to anxiety, and that is prayer. Not just any old haphazard prayer, but prayer with thanksgiving. See, when we are worried about everything, what happens to our vision? It starts to get clouded, and we fail to see all of the blessings that have already been poured out onto our lives.

And what an awesome promise we see in verse 7: if we will trade in our anxiety for prayer and thanksgiving, the God of all creation will give us His peace! A peace that not only completely satisfies, but that is greater than anything our feeble, little minds can even fathom. And that peace which passes all understanding will guard our hearts and our minds and protect us from all of the things that might destroy us. But, we have to trade in the worry and the anxiety.

May 2014 be the year when we worry less, pray more, and experience the peace of God in our lives like never before.