Worry and Dust

“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.” Philippians 4:6-7

Don’t worry about anything. Let me read that again. Don’t worry about anything. The writer of Philippians makes it sound so easy. Just DON’T DO IT. But how? How do I move from worrying about everything to not worrying about anything? I think the next sentence might be helpful in answering that question.

“Tell God what you need and thank him for all he has done.” Turning worry into prayer and thankfulness can be a game-changer. The problem with worry is that it’s kind of like, well, like dust. No matter how often you dust the furniture, it always seems to get dusty again. You feel like you finally have peace about something, then worry shows up like dust on a coffee table and you think, "Where’d that come from?" And “What do I do now?” 

It might sound over-simplified, but you might have to dust again. Continue to pray and give thanks to God for answered prayer and the solutions to the things you repeatedly worry about and over time, you will experience God’s peace, which exists outside of our realm of understanding.

As we continue to “dust the furniture” of our worried hearts and minds with prayer and thanksgiving, God’s peace will begin to take root and it will guard our hearts and minds as we live in Christ Jesus.