Read Philippians 4:6-7 NLT
Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. 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.
My mom always quoted these verses to me growing up. They were probably the first verses outside of John 3:16 that I actually had memorized. That is most likely due to the fact that I tend to do a lot of worrying and needed their reminder often. Worry was often my first instinct.
After I got married and started a family of my own, these verses found their way into my parenting as well. Whenever one of my children had a nightmare, or was worried, or hurting – I would remind them that God tells us not to worry about anything, but to pray about everything…and so we would pray together. We learned together about the tremendous importance of seeking God in everything.
One snowy afternoon when my oldest was about 3, we were headed home after a long day. The roads were pretty bad, so we said a prayer that God would guide our car home safely and started out. About halfway home, she piped up from the back seat and said, “Mom, why aren’t the people praying?” I didn’t really understand what she meant at first, but as I looked in the rear-view mirror, I noticed that she was scanning the cars that were creeping by us in the opposite direction. In her estimation, there was not enough praying going on for the weather that day!
I will never forget the heart behind her words that day. Her outlook was simple: circumstances look uncertain…and there isn’t enough praying going on.
I think we can probably all agree that is a pretty good assessment of our lives in general. That is why one of our Core Values is Prayer Leads the Way. In every situation – good or bad, or somewhere in between – we want our first response to be prayer. We trust that God will lead us, so we make prayer our priority.
How has prayer impacted your life? Is prayer your priority in life, not only when things are difficult, but in everything?
