Once upon a time, I thought I had a good handle on things. I had even the most seemingly unimportant things down to a formula. I'm serious. Then, I got burned out to the point that I act as if I do not care (when I secretly do).
Thankfully, God reminded me about Philippians 4:6 as I was typing the last sentence of the second paragraph above.
"Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God."
Here's an attempt to parse this out:
- "For nothing"
In this Scripture verse, to "be careful" means to "be anxious". And it says to be anxious "for nothing". If I were to remove myself from the situation, I can objectively say that such "nothingness" is inclusive of the trouble that I had caused and continue to cause due to my own neglect--it does not matter if it's a result of being overwhelmed due to lots and lots of changes that have brought about "cumulative, unprocessed stress". What am I worrying about then? - "In everything"
It simply says to pray about everything. Using deductive reasoning:
"Once we start praying about everything, we do not and should not need to worry about anything."
In the process of composing this blogpost, I am being enlightened to see the cause of my worries: I have not been praying about "every thing". - "With thanksgiving"
Okay, I am guilty as charged on this one. I may pray and thank God for the blessings that He has given me; yet, when I'd utter my requests, I'd justify them with a sense of dissatisfaction about my current situation. I'm starting to sound like the Israelites complaining about their manna. God had essentially delivered their groceries to their doorsteps, yet they continued to fuss and complain. God had shown them that He indeed can provide "a table in the wilderness", and all they had to do was obey. God had used this situation to teach them how to be humble, and they had failed. Miserably. On that note, I feel that I, too, am failing miserably at being thankful and humble. I need to start uttering my prayer requests with a thankful spirit--"with thanksgiving".
Obviously, I have failed everything on this "test". I have been anxious about a lot of things, I have not been praying about everything, and I have not been thankful in the very few moments that I do utter and make my requests known unto God. The Bible says that we should pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17), and that, I have not been doing. I have been focusing on the wrong thing--that is, worrying about the small stuff (you know, the things that have been causing my stress) vs. focusing on the big stuff (my relationship with God). God is definitely bigger than my problems; but, if I am to keep on amplifying and magnifying my problems as if they were bigger than God, then I'd be on my way to a downward worrisome spiral. On the other hand, if I were to magnify God, my problems would look a lot smaller. Hence, I'd be able to be anxious about nothing!
I started this blogpost simply to vent. I'm glad that each time I'd write on here, God would prick my heart with a timely Scripture verse to convict me to get back on track. Getting back on track--hmmm, I remember that blogpost from 3 years ago!
