Praying Through Worry
I’ve noticed a pattern in prayer requests. They tend to focus on the future. In the last month, I’ve been asked to pray for future exams, surgeries, visits, and “difficult conversations.” But also for anxious feelings about the unknown years ahead.
I’ve also noticed another pattern. Often, once the dreaded event we prayed about is past, it wasn’t as bad as anticipated. Noticing this pattern only required looking in a mirror. Sleepless nights, anxiously dreading the next day’s meetings, beat me up emotionally and physically before even getting to the meeting. Worrying about what could happen sometimes is a greater affliction than what does happen.
Anticipating the future is a uniquely human experience. The 18th-century evangelical preacher, Charles Simeon, says, “Other creatures equal him in actual enjoyment; but he alone can overleap thousands of intervening years, and derive pleasure or pain from the contemplation of distant events.” The excited fiancée derives joy from his wedding day the moment his future bride says yes. He also experiences the pain of rejection before proposing simply by worrying if she might say no.
Worry makes the future sting before it even arrives. As Simeon says, through worrying, our “apprehensions of future evil weigh more upon” us than the occasion requires. The trials I dread are often more difficult than the trials I face.
Is there an antidote? The Apostle Paul says yes. In Philippians 4:6-7, he says, “Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” Responding to worry with prayer is an act of faith. We don’t inform God of new developments in our lives,; we entrust ourselves to the one who not only knows our future but promises to work all things for our good and his glory (Rom 8:28).
My future trials are too big for me, but not for God. And my present worries are not so small that God gets annoyed when I pray about them. Bracketing his counsel to pray are promises of the Lord’s nearness (Phil 4:4) and “the God of peace will be with you” (Phil 4:9).
Where our minds dwell weighs heaviest on our hearts. Prayer, as Paul counsels, guards our hearts when we worry by redirecting our focus to God.
This doesn’t mean that trials won’t come. Sometimes we dread the future because a bitter cup is clearly coming for us to drink. Likewise, our present may be soaked more with tears than soaring with laughter. How can we grieve in such moments without giving in to the worry that it’s only going to get worse? In the same sermon, Simeon shares a deeply pastoral response.
We are not forbidden to give way to grief. The Saviour himself wept at the tomb of his friend. But are there to be no bounds to grief? Should not our sorrow be moderated by the consideration, that the cup is put into our hands by a gracious Father, and that, if drunk in submission to his will, it shall be sanctified to our eternal good?
Simeon knew suffering. For years, he was hated by the members of his church. They wanted a different man to be their pastor, so they locked the pews and even barred the doors, preventing people from coming to hear Simeon preach. His circumstances were anything but calm. So when he speaks of sorrow as a cup put in our hands by a gracious Father and sanctified for our eternal good, Simeon, like Paul, speaks out of the furnace of experience (2 Cor 1:3-11). It is no hollow comfort or careless wish. It is the strength of God holding his child through worry, fear, and sorrow.
This peace is not limited to special Christians but is available to all. “And my God will supply all your needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:19).
Don’t just pray about your worries. Pray through your worries with joyful faith knowing the God of peace is with you.