I often struggle to turn my mind off at night, making it difficult to fall asleep. As I was trying to fall asleep the other night, I had so many different things running through my head. The Lord brought this version of Philippians 4:6 to mind. I love how the NLT gets right to the point – Don’t worry about ANYTHING; instead pray about EVERYTHING. Seems pretty clear! ⠀
I started meditating on each part of this simple, yet profound verse:
Don’t Worry
Listen to how the dictionary defines worry – “to torment oneself with or suffer from disturbing thoughts; fret.” That’s exactly what we do when we worry, isn’t it? We torment ourselves and suffer from disturbing thoughts; we fret; we stew. We essentially meditate on our problems and fears.
About Anything
But God tells us not to suffer from disturbing thoughts about…ANYTHING! Sometimes we need to read that again and again. A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G. Our thoughts start to race again. “But what about __________?” Anything. Just let the magnitude of that word sink in.
Instead Pray
Then what do we do with all those concerns swirling around in our head? We Pray. We take them one-by-one and lay them at our Heavenly Father’s feet. We tell Him about…
About Everything
There’s one of those all-inclusive words again – Everything! That’s what we pray about. There’s no problem too big and no detail too small that God doesn’t want me to bring it to Him. “But surely God doesn’t care about________.” Everything.
The Result?
One by one, I decided not to worry about the many concerns running through my head, but instead, to pray about them. And sure enough, just as he promised in verse 7, “Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus”, I was able to fall into a deep sleep.
Check out my digital print for this verse! It makes a beautiful reminder to hang in your home or office!
