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I remember sitting in high school Algebra class staring at my textbook as if it were written in Mandarin Chinese.  Fortunately I had a patient teacher.  He issued the invitation and stuck to it: “If you cannot solve a problem, come to me and I will help you.”  I wore a trail between his desk and mine.  I would remind him, “Remember how you promised you would help?”  I still had the problem, mind you, but I entrusted the problem to one who knew how to solve it.

The Old Testament prophet Isaiah said, “Put the Lord in remembrance of His promises, keep not silence” (Isaiah 62:6).  God invites you—yes, commands you—to remind him of his promises.  Find a promise that fits your problem, and build your prayer around it!  These prayers of faith touch the heart of God and miracles are set in motion!

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On my good days I begin my morning with a cup of coffee and a conversation with God.  I look ahead into the day and make my requests.  I am meeting with so-and-so at 10:00AM.  Would you give me wisdom?  This afternoon I need to finish my sermon.  Would you please go ahead of me?

Then if a sense of stress surfaces during the day, I remind myself, Oh, I gave this challenge to God earlier today.  He has already taken responsibility for the situation.  I can be grateful, not fretful.

The Bible says, “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you (1 Peter 5:7).  Casting is an intentional act to relocate an object. As you sense anxiety welling up inside you, cast it in the direction of Christ.  He is moved by the sincere request.  After all, is he not our Father?

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Praying specifically about a problem creates a lighter load.  Many of our anxieties are threatening because they are ill-defined and vague.  If we can distill the challenge into a phrase, we bring it down to size. It’s one thing to pray, “Lord, please bless my meeting tomorrow.”

It’s another thing to pray, “I have a conference with my supervisor at 2:00 PM tomorrow.  She intimidates me.  Would you please grant me a spirit of peace so I can sleep well tonight?  Grant me wisdom so I can enter the meeting prepared.  And would you soften her heart toward me and give her a generous spirit?  Help us have a gracious conversation in which both of us benefit and your name is honored.”

There!  You have reduced the problem into a prayer-sized challenge.  As God’s children we honor him when we tell him exactly what we need.

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When God responds to our specific prayer in specific ways, our faith grows.  The book of Genesis relates the wonderful prayer of Abraham’s servant.  He was sent to find a wife for Abraham’s son.

How does a servant select a wife for someone else?  This servant prayed about it.  “O Lord God of my master, Abraham.”  I am standing here beside this spring, and the young women of the town are coming out to draw water.  This is my request.  I will ask one of them, ‘Please give me a drink from your jug of water.’  If she says, ‘Yes, have a drink…let her be the one you have selected…”

The servant envisioned an exact dialog, and then he stepped forth in faith.  Scripture says, “Before he had finished speaking, Rebekah appeared (Genesis 24:15).  The servant offered a specific prayer and had an answered prayer.  Consequently, he saw God at work.  May you and I do the same!

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A father was teaching his three-year-old daughter the Lord’s Prayer.  She would repeat the lines after him.  Finally she decided to go solo.  She carefully enunciated each word, right up to the end of the prayer.  “Lead us not into temptation,” she prayed, “but deliver us from e-mail.” (…not a bad prayer).

God calls us to pray about everything!  We tell God exactly what we want.  We pray the particulars. When the wedding ran low on wine, Mary wasn’t content to say, “Help us, Jesus.”  She was specific:  “They  have no more wine” (John 2:3).  A specific prayer is a serious prayer.  If I say to you, “Do you mind if I come by your house sometime?” you may not take me seriously. But if I say, “Can I come over this Friday night? I really need your advice.”  Then you know my petition is sincere.  When we offer specific requests, God knows the same!

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God loves the sound of your voice—always!  God never places you on hold or tells you to call again later.  He doesn’t hide when you call.  He hears your prayers.  For that reason “be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God” (Philippians 4:6).

With this verse the apostle calls us to take action against anxiety.  We tell God exactly what we want.  We pray the particulars of our problems.  What Jesus said to the blind man, he says to us: “What do you want me to do for you” (Luke 18:41)?  One would think the answer would be obvious.  When a sightless man requests Jesus’ help, isn’t it apparent what he needs?  Yet Jesus wanted to hear the man articulate his specific requests.  He wants the same from us.  “Let your requests be made known to God!”

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In his fine book, The Dance of Hope, Bill Frey remembers the day he tried to pull a stump out of the Georgia dirt.  One of his chores as a twelve-year-old was to search for stumps of pine trees that had been cut down and chop them into kindling.  But there was one root system he just couldn’t pull out of the ground.  He was still struggling when his father came over to watch.

“I think I see your problem,” the dad said.  “What’s that?” the son asked.  “You’re not using all your strength.”  Bill exploded and told him how hard he’d been working.  “No,” the dad said, “You’re not using all your strength.”  When Bill cooled down he asked what his father meant, and the dad said, “You haven’t asked me to help you.”  You don’t have to do it alone, friend.  Present the challenge to your Father, and ask for help.  Will he solve the issue?  Yes, he will.

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We can calmly take our concerns to God because he is as near as our next breath!  This was the reassuring message from the miracle of the bread and the fish.  In an event crafted to speak to the anxious heart, Jesus told his disciples to do the impossible: feed five thousand people.

Now you aren’t facing five thousand hungry bellies, but you are facing a deadline in two days, a loved one in need of a cure.  On one hand you have a problem.  On the other you have a limited quantity of wisdom, patience, or time.  Typically you’d get anxious.  You’d tell God, “You’ve given me too much to handle.”  This time, instead of focusing on what you don’t have, start with Jesus. Start with his wealth, his resources, and his strength.  Before you lash out in fear, look up in faith.  Turn to your Heavenly Father for help.

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God repeatedly pledges his presence to his people.  To Abram, God said, “Do not be afraid. . .I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward” (Genesis 15:1).  God told Joshua, “Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:9).  In the ultimate declaration of communion, God called himself Immanuel, which means, God with us.  He became flesh.  He became sin.  He defeated the grave.  He is still with us.  In the form of his Spirit, he comforts, teaches, and convicts.

Don’t assume God is watching from a distance.  Isolation creates a downward cycle of fret.  Choose instead to be the person who clutches the presence of God with both hands.  We can calmly take our concerns to God because he is as near as our next breath.  And because the Lord is near, we can be anxious for nothing.

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How many disasters have been averted because one person refused to buckle under the strain? It’s this kind of composure Paul is summoning when he says, “Let your gentleness be evident to all.  The Lord is near.  Do not be anxious about anything” (Philippians 4:5-6).

The Greek word translated here as “gentleness” describes a temperament that’s seasoned and mature.  It envisions an attitude fitting to the occasion, levelheaded and tempered.  This gentleness is “evident to all.”  Family members take note.  Your friends sense a difference. Coworkers benefit from it.

The gentle person is sober minded and clear thinking.  The contagiously calm person is the one who reminds others, “God is in control.”  Pursue this gentleness.  The Lord is near—you are not alone.  You may feel alone.  You may think you’re alone.  But there is never a moment in which you face life without help.  God is near—be anxious for nothing!

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Sometime ago I made a special visit to the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem.  I wanted to see the handwritten lyrics that hang on the wall, framed and visible for all to see.  Horatio Spafford wrote them, never imagining they would become the words to one of the world’s best-loved hymns.

On December 2, 1873, he received a telegram from his wife that began, “Saved alone.  What shall I do?”  The ship she was on had collided with another ship and had sunk.  Their four daughters drowned and Anna survived.  While sailing on the ship to bring her home, Spafford wrote the lyrics to a song that would become an anthem to the providence of God.  “Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say. . .it is well with my soul!”

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In the famous lace shops of Brussels, Belgium, certain rooms are dedicated to the spinning of the finest lace, with the most delicate of patterns.  These rooms are completely dark, except for a shaft of natural light from a solitary window.  Only one spinner sits in the room.  The light falls on the pattern while the worker remains in the dark.

Has God permitted a time of darkness in your world?  You look but you cannot see him.  You see only the fabric of circumstances woven and interlaced.  You might question the purpose behind this thread or that.  But be assured, God has a pattern.  He has a plan.  The Bible says in Romans 8:28, “In all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”  He is not finished.  But when he is, the lace will be beautiful!

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No moment, event, or detail falls outside of God’s supervision.  God is the one who “causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45).  He isn’t making up this plan as he goes along.  Daniel 5:21 says, “The most High God rules the kingdom of men, and sets over it whom he will.”

So if God is in charge, why does he permit challenges to come our way?  Wouldn’t an almighty God prevent them?  Not if they serve his higher purpose!   The ultimate example is the death of Christ on the cross.  Everyone thought the life of Jesus was over.  Jesus was dead and buried, but God raised him from the dead.  God took the crucifixion of Friday and turned it into the celebration of Sunday.  Can he not do a reversal for you?

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Paul urges us to “rejoice in the Lord always!” (Philippians 4:4).  Not just on paydays, good days, or birthdays.  But rejoice in the Lord always.  Rejoice in the Lord always?  Yeah, right, mumbles the person from the hospital bed.  How? sighs the unemployed dad.  Always? questions the mother of the baby born with a disability.

It’s one thing to rejoice in the Lord when life is good, but when the odds are against you?  It’s not easy, but it is possible.  Lay claim to the promise of God in Colossians 1:17: “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”  Rejoice in the sovereignty of God.  His throne is still occupied; his will is still perfect.  Rejoice in the Lord always.  God uses everything to accomplish his will!

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In one of Henri Nouwen’s books, he tells about the lesson of trust he learned from a great trapeze artist.  The acrobat said, “The flyer does nothing and the catcher does everything.  I have simply to reach out my arms and hands and wait for him to catch me and pull me safely over the apron.”  The flyer must trust, with outstretched arms, that his catcher will be there for him.”

In the great trapeze act of salvation, God is the catcher, and we are the flyers.  We trust.  Period.  We rely solely upon God’s ability to catch us.  And as we trust him, a wonderful thing happens– we fly!  Your Father has never dropped anyone.  He will not drop you.  His grip is sturdy and his hands are open.  Place yourself entirely in his care.  As you do, you will find it is possible, yes possible, to be anxious for nothing!

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There’s a reason the windshield is bigger than the rearview mirror.  Your future matters more than your past!  God’s grace is greater than your sin.  You thought the problem was your calendar, your marriage, your job.  In reality, it’s this unresolved guilt!  Don’t indulge it.  Don’t drown in the bilge of your own condemnation.  What you did was not good.  But your God is good.  And He will forgive you.

He is ready to write a new chapter in your life.  Say with Paul, “Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God is calling us” (Philippians 3:13-14). Your salvation has nothing to do with your work and everything to do with the finished work of Christ on the  cross.  Rejoice in the Lord’s mercy!

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Denalyn and I had enjoyed a nice dinner at a local restaurant. As we received our bill, a church member spotted us and came over. After we chatted a few moments, he took our bill.  “I’ll take this,” he said.  Guess what?  I let him do what he wanted to do.  I let him take it away.

Someday we will stand before God.  All of us will be present.  All of us will have to give an account for our lives.  Every thought, every deed, every action.  Were it not for the grace of Christ, I would find this to be a very terrifying thought.  Yet, according to Scripture, Jesus came to “take away the sins of the world” (John 1:29).  On that day, I will point to Christ.  When my list of sins is produced, I will gesture toward him and say, “He took it.”  Let him take yours!

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I can bear witness to the power of God’s grace!  I could take you to the church, to the section of seats in the church auditorium.  I might even be able to find the very seat in which I was sitting when this grace found me.  I was a twenty-year-old college sophomore, living with a concrete block of guilt that had made a mess of my life.

But then I heard a preacher describe the divine grace that is greater than sin.  At the end of the message he asked if anyone would like to come forward and receive this grace.  Iron chains couldn’t have held me back. Truth be told, chains had held me back.  But mercy snapped the guilt chains and set me free.  I know this truth firsthand– Guilt frenzies the soul; grace calms it!  The benefit of being a great sinner is dependence upon a great grace!

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What kind of person does unresolved guilt create? An anxious one, forever hiding, running, denying, pretending. As one man admitted, “I was always living a lie for fear someone might see me for who I really was and think less of me.  I hid behind my super spirituality but this lie was exhausting and anxiety producing.”

Unresolved guilt will turn you into a miserable, weary, angry, fretful mess.  In a psalm David wrote after his affair with Bathsheba, the kind said, “When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long.  Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me.  My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat.”  (Psalm 32:3-4)

As Paul told Titus, God’s grace is the fertile soil out of which courage sprouts! “God’s readiness to give and forgive is now public. Salvation’s available for everyone!” (Titus 2:11, 15 MSG).

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Guilt sucks the life out of our souls.  Grace restores it.  No one had more reason to feel the burden of guilt than did the apostle Paul.  He had orchestrated the deaths of Christians—he was an ancient version of a terrorist.

Paul gave his guilt to Jesus.  Period.  He surrendered it to Jesus.  As a result he could write, “I am still not all I should be, but I am bringing all my energies to bear on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God is calling us up to heaven because of what Christ Jesus did for us.”  (Philippians 3:13-14).

What would the apostle say to the guilt-ridden?  Simply this: Rejoice in the Lord’s mercy.  Trust in his ability to forgive. Cast yourself upon the grace of Christ and Christ alone!

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