“In everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.” — Philippians 4:6b
The things that most concern me and make me worry are the very things I need to handle with prayer. In yesterday’s devotion, I talked about how hard it can be to pray when anxiety, worry, or the “cares of the world” get a foothold in your life.
These hindrances to prayer are human emotions that are a process of our minds, of our imaginations out of control, and of being too focused on ourselves and our inability to cope. We are reminded again and again throughout Scripture to turn our thoughts to the Lord, to go to Him with all our needs.
One of the best mental and spiritual exercises we can do is found in 2 Corinthians 10:5: “Casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.”
Nothing “exalts itself against the knowledge of God” more than worry, anxiety, and fear. Our knowledge of God is that He promised, “I will never leave nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). If I believe that statement is true, I can also believe that once I have prayed—about anything and everything—I can trust God to take care of it all.
“The self-sufficient do not pray, the self-satisfied will not pray, the self-righteous cannot pray. No man is greater than his prayer life.” —Leonard Ravenhill
