Coronado Bible Church

Maybe it should have been a no-brainer, maybe you figured it out years ago, but something was missing in my prayer life. I’m going to omit it from the verses we’ve been considering … and see if you catch it …

 

 

What’s missing? It wasn’t totally missing from my prayer life. I knew God deserved it. I would always try to work it in. I would always come up with something to say … and most of the time I genuinely meant it. It was a habitual section of almost every prayer.

 

That was the issue. It was a section of my prayer life. I had a giant bin of “I need” and a well-considered little basket of “l want.” I was always careful to keep them in that proportion … but they were always full. I’d rummaged around in another cubbyhole to find something to pray for that wasn’t about me … and then I had this little collection of … “it.” It didn’t change much. I would pull out the standard items and hold them up to God and then I’d put them back for the next prayer. “Thank you for my salvation … thank you for my wife … thank you for my health … etc.” Was I thankful? Yes … but thankfulness was not central to my prayer life.

 

That’s where Paul put thankfulness, right in the middle of everything. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, WITH THANKSGIVING, present your requests to God. Do you see how radical that is? Paul doesn’t say (as some prayer models do) “Be sure to devote a portion of your prayer to giving thanks.” No, thanksgiving is integrated into every petition and request. Each one is offered in prayer “with thanksgiving.” (Pause … let that sink in.)

 

Does your heart rebel at finding thankfulness, some reason for gratitude, in every situation? I understand, but be assured, God does not command what is impossible or hurtful for his children. Thanksgiving directed to God in all our requests and petitions carries the promise of divine peace.

 

 

Philippians 4:6-7 promises supernatural, soul-preserving peace to believers in Jesus Christ who will … pray.

 

 

Have you found prayer as effective as Paul promised? Can you count on prayer to quench the mind-warping pressures of modern life? Have you found it a bulwark capable of protecting your emotion stability? Maybe you’ve never thought of the question because that wasn’t the goal of your praying. Your goal in prayer was to petition or request something from God. Your expectation is that God, being both powerful and loving, is capable of answering your prayer.

 

God is powerful and loving. He is capable of answering our prayers, but that is not the promise of these verses. The promise is that if we take our petitions and requests to our Heavenly Father, he will give us his peace; Marvelous peace, divine peace, beyond comprehension and capable of protecting our psyche (heart and mind). The verses make no promise that everything we ask for will be granted. They do unreservedly promise that we can exchange our anxiousness in any situation for God’s peace.

 

I have lived through some soul-crushing experiences in life. Some I have fought through in my own strength, experiencing levels of anxiety that probed the limits of my mental fortitude and wreaked havoc on my nervous system. Others I faced with prayer, confident of my Father’s sovereign love and care. The divide between brooding anxiety and supernatural peace has been a sliding scale. It has depended on how quickly I got in my “right mind” and remembered God’s promise of “peace that passes understanding.” Even as I write, I know that the struggle between self-sufficiency and God-dependence will be ongoing.

 

In my next post on August 13 I’ll share the most recent (and perhaps most important) way these verses have challenged my prayer life.

 

 

 

 

Before we get to the application of these verses, maybe we need to unpack the encouragement of what they promise. It is an audacious claim. If we short circuit our brooding anxiousness by following this command, we will experience peace

The word translated “guard” is a military term used for sentinels who kept watch at the walls of a citadel. Their vigilance ensured that the city remained safe … intact. In some ways, I think the ancient Jew’s were superior in their view of the human Psyche (soul) because they did not have strict distinctions between the emotions and intellect. Their view was integrated. Paul (the Jew) writing to a Greek audience includes both heart and mind. He was promising that the peace given by God can keep who you are as a person intact. First century audiences were also well aware that the brain and the heart were the most vital areas to “guard” in a battle. Gladiators not wishing to be encumbered by bulky armor often wore a helmet and a small shield that covered their heart. The peace of God is soul armor.

 

The most important thing I can say about this Soul Armor is that it comes from God through Christ. You will notice in verse 7 that “the peace of God … guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” An old saying is borne out by this promise; ‘No Christ … No Peace.’  ‘Know Christ … Know Peace.’

 

If you feel like you can’t wait for the application, I’ve already posted next week’s blog (or I will tomorrow).

 

 

 

Oh Please! Get Real! Are you serious? Just a few of the tamer responses I can imagine to this command from God’s word.

 How can I …

Is that even humanly possible? Even more challenging, the command is, “do not worry about ANYTHING.” Granted, I worry about many inconsequential things … but surely there are some exceptions to this rule. Does God expect me to face financial ruin, my loved one’s fatal diagnosis, my child’s disintegrating life or my culture’s headlong spiral toward oblivion … without being anxious?

 

Consider an infant girl … surprised suddenly by the appearance of her father’s face from behind a blanket. Can you picture it? Her eyes blink rapidly, her chin tucks, her head trembles, her hands jerk … her first response is involuntary. But what comes next … does the child descend into a fit or wailing or burst into sweet laughter? Our first response to trials is no more voluntary. God understands; He wired us to respond to our surroundings and to act. Even the fear response is part of God’s good provision for preserving our lives.

 

The secret to understanding this command is in the second response. Built into the Greek phrase translated “do not be anxious” is the idea of prolonged apprehension. An English word that communicates this well would be “brooding.” In His kindness, our Creator bids us not carry our first response of shock, fear or anger … into brooding anxiousness. Do not continue in anxiousness, “but in everything” or “rather in all situations …”

 

Sorry to keep you in suspense … but tune in next week. 🙂

 

 

According to a report entitled, “The State of Mental Health in America –2017,” access to mental health care has increased, but so have mental health issues. Depression rates in youth continue to rise year after year. The report estimates that one in five U.S. citizens have some level of mental health condition. The study decries the lack of professionals (psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, counselors, and psychiatric nurses) reporting that the least resourced state has an average of only one mental health professional per 1000 citizens. If we take that lowest rate of coverage against the U.S. population, that means there are at least 321,400 mental health professionals in the U.S. That outnumbers churches! It also outnumbers mental health professionals in every region of the world with the exclusion of Europe. With such abundant resources, why aren’t we in better mental shape?

 

That’s a complex question with a multifaceted answer far beyond the scope of one Pastor’s Corner. I believe the decline in mental health is rooted in what we’re ignoring. Psychology, if traced to its Greek roots (psyche—logia), literally means a “study of the soul.” But today’s dictionary definition reduces the field to brains and behaviors …“the scientific study of the human mind and its functions, especially those affecting behavior in a given context.” Let me humbly suggest that society will continue to grow more unstable as long as we marginalize or ignore the soul. We are more than heads and chemicals. We are beings created by God for a relationship with him. Modern Psychology in it’s materialistic bent cannot have the ultimate answer. Stay tuned over the next couple of weeks as I unpack this passage that promises armor for our psyche,