Bits of Being

thoughts on life, faith, family….and, yes, just learning to "be"

A Reflection on Philippians 4:6-7

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 Don’t fret or worry. 

Don’t judge. Don’t just react. Don’t start thinking about worst-case scenarios. Don’t put up walls. Don’t scream and rant. Don’t let your obsessive thoughts take over. Don’t condemn.

Instead of worrying, pray. 

Tell God how you feel. Let God know all about your anxiety, your fears, your stress. God can even handle your anger. God can handle your self-righteousness. God can handle your selfishness.

Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. 

Share with God, for God already knows your apprehensions and your unease and your dismay. God knows your thought processes. God knows this isn’t what you wanted or expected or had planned. 

Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. 

You’ll see God working. God’s wholeness takes over! Things come together for good! This doesn’t mean that everything will be perfect. This doesn’t mean pain will be avoided. This doesn’t mean nothing bad will ever happen. But, you’ll see God bringing good out of what you mistakenly thought was only bad. What you thought could only be wrong, you’ll see God use it in amazing ways. If you trust this to happen, if you trust God to make it happen, your whole being will settle down.

It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.

Life is created! New life! New opportunities. You hold the tension in the God-space inside of your heart, you hold the darkness in the center of your being instead of rejecting it, and God shines light on it. God breathes life into it. Even into those things you thought you had to reject and condemn. God breathes life! And, suddenly, you know what is yours to do. 

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