“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 4:6-7 NRSVue
Over the years, my perspective on prayer has changed a great deal. As a child, I saw prayer simply as asking God for stuff.
Prayer was a key concern in my dissertation. Part of my argument is that prayer is not simply asking God for things. If it were, the admonition to pray without ceasing would make us akin to the toddler who incessantly asks for what he wants. Asking is certainly a part of prayer. But a better definition is responding to God with or without words.
When we pray without ceasing, we are living a life that is a response to God.
In this verse, we are encouraged not to be anxious but to live with a thankful heart, a life that is a continual response to God. This, of course, includes letting God know our desires, but it is so much more.
Interestingly, the result of such a life is the peace of God. The Hebrew term would be Shalom, which is not merely an absence of strife. It is a wholeness, a flourishing. What struck me reading this passage this time is that the result of living life as a response to God (prayer) is Shalom, and it is Shalom that guards our hearts and minds. As a child, I read this passage as saying that if I do the act of prayer with the right attitude, there is a mystical exchange that will guard my heart.
Today, I see this passage as teaching that if I live a life that is a thankful response to God – a relational posture, not a works-oriented posture – I will experience a wholeness, God’s peace, which is beyond my understanding. This wholeness, this peace, by its nature, is the most profound guard for my heart and mind.
For me, this is a much more beautiful understanding. I am not performing acts to earn the guarding of my heart. I am living in response to, in relationship with God, and that which makes me whole and flourishing naturally guards my heart.
Once, I thought this was about me and what I do. But today, I believe this is about Jesus and my response to Him.
A Quote to Consider:
“I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
-Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was hardly one of our more devout Founding Fathers. But he was a wise man in many ways.
Tyranny, by its nature, reduces our freedom. I read scripture as the story of God wanting us to choose to follow Him, but allowing us to choose otherwise if we so desire. He gives us freedom to choose.
Jefferson was mostly concerned with tyrannical systems of government. Those concern me. However, I am often more concerned with tyrannical systems of religion.
Like government, religion can be coercive. The epidemic of “church hurt” or “religious trauma” is a testament to how coercive church can be.
The irony is that faith cannot be coerced. Faith requires that we freely delight in God.
A tyrannical government reduces our freedom as it increases its power. A tyrannical religious system does the same. More often than I would like to admit, church systems are about power.
I might amend Jefferson’s quote to read, “I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind and the soul.”
Prayer:
Lord,
Help me to live in constant response to You—not out of anxiety, but with gratitude. May I flourish in wholeness so that my mind and heart are guarded by Your incomprehensible peace.
Amen.
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