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Have You Taken Your Spiritual Meds?

Sam Stringer

Nov 9, 2024

Be anxious for nothing, 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 minds through Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:6-7

I have a son who can get extremely cranky when he doesn’t eat enough. Back when he was nearly five
years old, we went on a big family vacation, the first big trip we’d ever taken as a family of six. We went
down to Florida and visited all sorts of places, swam, ate some great food, all of that fun stuff. One of the
places we went was Disney World, a magical adventure, unless you have a boy who looks like a stand-in
for Grumpy, one of the seven dwarves. It got so bad at times, us not knowing at the time that he needed
food, that we would look for Grumpy hats and have him try them on and take pictures. We’ve grown as
parents since those days, and we’ve figured him out a lot more since then.

It's not uncommon to hear someone say, “You need to eat. You need to sleep. You need to get out a little.
You need to take your meds!” Well, while those can be of help to a person’s stability, they’re not
everything. In fact, we all too often shirk our spiritual lifelines in favor of the duct tape fixes of this world.
I’m not saying don’t eat, don’t sleep, don’t go on a walk, don’t take your meds. I am referring, though, to
the fact that the struggles of life will draw the sinner out in you and if you’re not walking with God, it’ll be
all the more obvious.

Paul gives the Philippians a God-ordained prescription for dealing with the stressors of life and for
pursuing the calm that we all would love to have. “Be anxious for nothing, but…” Instead of letting anxiety
rule without a plan, the rest of the verse says, “in everything by prayer and supplication, with
thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.” In so doing, you are taking those concerns of
your life and placing them into the hands of God. You’re acknowledging that they bother you, but you’re
also recognizing that the real Problem Solver is God. It’s a matter of trust and a willingness to give that
load over to the One who can handle it.

Where do we go from praying and thanking God? The verse says that the result of placing things into
God’s hands is that “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and
minds through Christ Jesus.” Peace, not because God makes everything right in an instant, but because
we are trusting His wisdom in handling the situation and cultivating dependency upon Him. Think of it this
way: we have gone all the way to the top in trying to get solutions to our concerns when we take our
cares to God.

Praying doesn’t mean that God’s going to answer you right away, or that He’s even going to give you
what you’re asking for. It does mean that you are not simply carrying it alone, struggling to bear the
weight that He might not be asking you to be burdened under all by yourself. We need to be humble
enough to ask God for help. Sometimes we convince ourselves that we can just outsmart our situation or
tough it out, but is that really wise? Not when God calls on us to depend upon Him. In that case, it’s not
smart or tough, it’s arrogant. The way we handle things sometimes, you’d think we were assembling
IKEA furniture with our feet at 3 in the morning during a power outage, and that’s not pretty. The Bible
makes it clear: you don’t need to do that. Rely upon Him and rest in His decisions. Be blessed, be brave.

Sam Stringer

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by
permission. All rights reserved.

Braver Than Lions

©2024 by Braver Than Lions

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