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

If you read my post yesterday, you’d know that this is the second part of one of my all time favorite verses, Philippians 4:4-7. Paul discusses here that we shouldn’t be anxious in any situation and that instead we ought to be in prayer and petitioning God for things and then we will have God’s peace guard our minds in Christ. Personally I think this comes from relinquishing control. When we are anxious we feel we are out of control in a situation we feel we should be in control of. We feel something is going to fall apart if we don’t intervene or that our intervention is the cause itself. When we pray and petition God for something we ask him to solve the problem for us and fill in the pieces for us that we can’t. We give him control to enable the situation to succeed. We no longer are the ones who dictate whether or not something succeeds or fails at least not if we are being faithful to God, but God is. We can have peace we don’t have to worry about feeling out of control since we relinquished our control to the one who knows how to control anything as master of all. Success or failure no longer are the what is happening but watching the choices God chooses to make instead. Response to anxiety with prayer and petitioning and let God’s peace guard your heart and mind.