Is that ALL?

Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6-7 NLT)

God's peace is no further away than our prayers. When we share our heart with Jesus, acknowledging our failures and opening up to him about more than our 'wants', we will find his peace entering into our troubled spirits afresh each time we spend this time with him. His peace isn't something we 'earn' by reciting various prayers - it is something we experience because we have opened up in honesty to him.

We surely will never understand how God can take the most frustrating of circumstances with their jumble of emotions and give us a settle peace deep within. It isn't that we figured out the solution. It isn't that the situation changes. It is that we are changed on the inside - somehow giving us perspective and peace. You likely have experienced that perspective on occasion. You saw things as a jumbled-up mess before you began to talk with him and then afterwards the 'jumble' seemed to be sorted.

We might want to make haste to take our messes to him, but he asks us to take our good stuff to him just as quickly. When we begin to develop the habit of 'prayer without ceasing', we will find we share quite easily both the good and the worrisome. We invite him into our moments - not just our catastrophes! We find praise coming quickly, even when the worrisome stuff begins to occur. Why? We have a 'settled peace' that he is in control even when everything else seems to be out of control.

It is impossible to have this type of peace apart from a deep and honest relationship with him, though. We might want to consider how honest we are being with him today. Yes, we bring our needs to him - things like income so we can pay our debts, healing for our sick child, or even a roof over our head. Do we bring our whole heart to him? Do we share our worries as well as our hopes? Do we seek his perspective on our sin or just confess that we 'did it again'? Peace eludes those who only maintain a superficial connection with him.

The communion Jesus is after is much deeper. He wants us to be free to express our hearts - the good and the bad. He will celebrate with us and sometimes he will correct us. We should not fear the latter as it is always for our good and his correction will help restore that deep sense of peace that only he can bring. There will always be room for us to go just a little deeper in our connection with him, but it will only happen when we are willing to bring ALL our needs. Just sayin!