Archive for May 15th, 2008

As I talked with a neighbor the other night I told about an incident that happened to their middle daughter where she and everyone in her car were attacked by another group of teenagers.  There is very visible damage to her car and I am sure that it must have scared all of them fairly well.  So as a dad of 3 daughters I had a lot of questions as to what was being done about the incident and how they were handling things.  Well as I thought about it more and more I began to wonder the best way to make sure my daughters are always protected, so I started thinking…Jujitsu lessons?, Hand-gun training?, do I hire a body guard?, big dog that we claim is a seeing-eye dog?  And then in my devotion my Heavenly Father who knows my heart and knows all of my concerns leads me to this…

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4: 6-7

Now, I have read this verse hundreds of times but I don’t know that it was ever at the exact time that I was actually pondering something of a “worry” type nature, and in it God showed me several things.
First He showed me that through prayer and spending time in His lap talking with Him is how we can best handle these things.  We have to petition God with our concerns and our worries.  Secondly, upon doing that He will bestow upon us “…the peace of God” (notice not a peace like God’s but His actual peace) which is past what we can understand to be peace.  And thirdly, He will through Jesus Christ guard our hearts and our minds.  What kind of better protection could we ask for?

That was so encouraging to hear from Him, however as He usually does with me, with comfort comes correction.  He reminded me that for God to bestow that peace and that comfort we must be striving to live closer to Him every day.  We must be living a life that is of a higher standard.  He reminded me that lukewarm Christianity is one of the biggest lies the Devil tells us.   To call yourself a Christian and to not have a heart that is striving to live above reproach is unsatisfactory.   Look what scripture tells us…

Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win.
1 Corinthians 9:24

To run and win a marathon you simply cannot show up the day of the event and expect to win, you must spend hours, days, weeks, years training to win.  Training for such an event is something that most runners do daily!   Our walk with God should be the same, why should we expect to be given His peace if we are not training ourselves daily in His word and on our knees.   Then your attempts to “run that marathon to God” in times of trouble will end up with you grasping for worldly things that will never satisfy instead of resting on a foundation of peace and fulfillment in Jesus Christ.  To steal a line from Holk Hogan (yea I’m going to) “train hard, say your prayers and eat your vitamins.”.  Ok the vitamins is just good advice but the other two are vital.  We must train hard and we must say our prayers!! 

God Bless ~ Tyler