Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
(Philippians 4:4-6 NIV)
The Lord wants us to have abundant joy in life. Unfortunately, people don’t believe this. They think that those who are devoted to God are not fun and exciting. However, the bible says that “Blessed are the people whose God is the Lord!” (Psalm 144:15 GNT)
Not only He wants us to live a blessed life, but He gives us some tips on how to be happy and blessed. One of the ways is to not be anxious about anything.
The bible says: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”
The main reason why we are anxious is that we don’t trust the Lord in certain aspects in our life. This is the opposite of faith. It’s just as we are saying, “Lord, i don’t believe that You are in control of everything.”
Have we ever thought that worrying never solves our problems? Worrying only waste our energy and it cannot change our past and future. On the other hand, worrying can instead ruin our lives in the present.
Someone once said that worrying is like a rocking chair; it gives us something to do, but we don’t gain anything out of it.
Jesus also said, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:34 NIV)
What if we spend our time and energy to pray instead of worrying?
Praying is communicating with God and the first thing that we must do when we start to feel anxious. Prayer is not the last option. Some people say, “We have tried everything. Maybe we can try praying!” On the other hand, cast all your anxiety on God first so that we don’t waste our energy worrying.
We cannot be anxious and happy at the same time. That is why the first step to happiness is to stop worrying and start praying! This is not an easy thing to do because our tendency as a human is worrying about life, but let’s try praying in times of anxiety starting from now!
When you stop being anxious and start praying, you will find new strength inside of you and start living your best life for God’s purpose every day.
Source : Ps. Henny Sukmawati (Global Prayer Team)
