In Everything by Prayer

One of the most familiar verses to us as believers is Philippians 4:6, where Paul commanded the Philippian believers not to be anxious for anything, but in "everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving,  let your requests be made known unto God."

Without giving a blow by blow explanation of the passage, let me at least mention that the entire passage which ends in verse 9 is focusing on allowing the Spirit to maintain the peace of God in our hearts as Christians.  Three things will determine whether that happens.  Verses 6-7 reveals that in order to have the peace of God controlling us we need to pray right.  Verse 8 shows us that we need to think right.  Verse 9 shows us that we need to do right.

The first of these is prayer.  In reality Paul is commanding us to pray about everything.  We tend to limit the scope of prayer, don't we?  I know I do, but God doesn't limit either the scope of what we can ask for or how He answers our requests.

I remember the time in my first church planting ministry.  Because of limited finances I was forced to rent our home for nearly eight years.  One day in my small church office I did the math and realized the astronomical amount of money I had paid into my landlord's mortgage account, and not my own.  Right there, I got on my knees and asked God to give me a house of my own.  I wanted my kids to know what it was like to live in their own home.   Somehow when I got off my knees that afternoon,  I felt in my heart the peace of God, coupled with the sense that God was going to answer my prayer.  The problem was, I didn't have any money, I mean literally none!  My meager ministry salary was barely enough to get us through each passing month.

To make a long story short, 5 months later, I owned my own piece of land, a 2600 square foot house, and a mortgage which was just as manageable as paying rent.  Here's the catch, my income never changed one penny, but I can assure you my circumstances did!  God answered that prayer in ways so far beyond my comprehension, it remains one of the great miracle stories of our family history.

Let me remind you today to pray, not about some things, but everything, even the things you might think cannot be done!  Our Father is the God of the impossible.

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