Philippians 4:6……..”Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplications, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.”

What is Paul telling us?  How can we not be anxious as well as afraid?  Perhaps your home was just destroyed by a hurricane; you lost everything you owned; everything you know and loved is gone!  How can you not be anxious? 

Thankfully, I am not faced with this problem.  However, there are hundreds of people who have lost most of their worldly possessions.   How can I possibly tell them not to anxious or afraid? 

                                                               I cannot!

 However, I know this.  Paul’s letters were more concerned about his readers being threatened with their lives than losing their possessions.   Many of these Philippians faced torture and death rather than forsake their faith.   Could you and I stay firmly planted with our faith in the face of death?  Do we have the courage to face what challenges God allows for us? 

You who are reading this might, indeed, have lost everything.  Will you still believe that God is in control or just a capricious unknown and unloving entity who allows suffering? 

Always a favorite question of Atheists……..How can a good God allow suffering?  How would you answer that question?  Many sermons, books, comments and blogs have been written on this subject.  We humans can only come up with mere suppositions. 

Paul wrote these new converts with love and compassion for the Lord that consumed him.  Recently coming out of their pagan culture to become new Believers in a Jewish Messiah, these believing Philippians were besieged within their own community.

While Paul probably wrote this from his prison cell in Rome, he is encouraging his little flock to retain their faithfulness and not be overwhelmed by anxiety.  He assured them that God’s grace through the Spirit would sustain them. 

He tells them to stay the Faith……pray always and be anxious in nothing.  God will provide, sustain, and be with them always…..even unto death.  He firmly believed that God allowed him to be in this prison and wrote with conviction that God will sustain them as well.

“Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things!!!” (Phil. 4:8)

Here’s a thought: When our lives our interrupted with anxiety’s and fearfulness …..concentrate on God’s good gifts………replacing the “what if’s” with He loves and wants the best for me.”  Now repeat after me and slowly!

May the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard my heart  and my mind and give me peace,  through our loving  Messiah….  Jesus. “