Listen:
“Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.” (Philippians 4:6-7, Message)
Reflect:
I believe everyone struggles with worry/anxiety at some point in their life. Some of us may be struggling with it this Christmas as we face broken relationships, illnesses, loss of job, loss of a loved one, financial hardship, etc. We long for the peace of God — the Shalom — that the apostle Paul says God will give us. Finding that peace often comes through a process.
As I reflected on this passage, I thought of the prophet Habakkuk. Seeing what was going on around him—wrongdoing, destruction, lawlessness, murder, strife, conflict, injustice—he was filled with anxiety and struggled to understand where God was in the mix.
Habakkuk brought his complaints (anxieties) to the Lord, and God answered. Habakkuk didn’t much like what God had to say, so he complained again. God answered again. In a lengthy response, he assures Habakkuk that he is on his throne, he sees everything on earth from his heavenly perspective, he knows what he is doing, and will work in his own way and his own timing.
The dialogue concludes with the words, “The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him.”
Francis I. Andersen says, “Like Job (Job 40:4), Habakkuk ends by putting his hand on his mouth” (Habakkuk: A New Translation). What more could he say?
A humbled Habakkuk offers up a prayer of confidence and trust. He recalls how God had moved and worked in the past, and is determined to celebrate God—trusting in him no matter what the future holds:
“THOUGH the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines,
THOUGH the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food,
THOUGH there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls,
YET I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior” (Habakkuk 3:17-18).
Prayer of Response:
Lord, I lift all my worries, my anxieties, my fears up to you. Let me enter YOUR PEACE, your SHALOM that surpasses all my frail, limited, human understanding. May your Spirit remind me of all that you have done for me in the past and help me trust you for the future. Guard my heart and my mind, and enable me to say along with Habakkuk, “Even though…yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.”
Breath Prayers:
Join us in praying breath prayers each day. We invite you to write your own as well.
Inhale (Breath in): Sovereign God
Exhale (Breath out): I find my peace in you alone
Submitted by Dona Diehl
Dona has been with Lifesprings almost since its beginning in 2006 and currently serves on the Lifesprings executive team. She lives with her husband Howard in Illinois. They have two adult children and four grandchildren.
Feature photo by Christopher Politano on Unsplash