ANTIDOTE

Have you thanked Him?

Have you praised Him?

Have you made it your priority to agree and cooperate with Him today?

Have you taken that deep breath and listened for what He has for you today?

1 Timothy 2:1 (The Message)

The first thing I want you to do is pray. Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know.

Philippians 4:6-7 (TPT)

Don’t be pulled in different directions or worried about a thing. Be saturated in prayer throughout each day, offering your faith-filled requests before God with overflowing gratitude. Tell him every detail of your life, then God’s wonderful peace that transcends human understanding, will make the answers known to you through Jesus Christ.

Other translations like the NKJV use the more familiar phrase, “Be anxious for nothing…”

But just exactly what does that entail?

One of my favorites, Max Lucado unpacks it this way.

“Be anxious for nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Is this what he meant? Not exactly. He wrote the phrase in the present active tense, which implies an ongoing state. It's the life of perpetual anxiety that Paul wanted to address.

The Lucado Revised Translation reads, "Don't let anything in life leave you perpetually breathless and in angst." The presence of anxiety is unavoidable, but the prison of anxiety is optional.”

“The PRESENCE of anxiety is UNAVOIDABLE, but the PRISON of anxiety is OPTIONAL”.

Hang on to that a second my friends.

Anxiety has an antidote!

And Paul sums up what it is so nicely; he clearly prescribes the elixir to combat this pesky contagion, “Be saturated in prayer throughout each day”

I had the pleasure of breakfast yesterday south of Dayton with a dear friend and colleague.  She helms one of the most comprehensive and compassionate recovery ministries in the area.  And as we were catching up, making some plans for 2019 and an upcoming event, we began to chat about the challenge of ANXIETY.

“Are we doing enough?”

“Is what we are doing effective?”

“What does the new administration mean for our work?”

“Can we sustain it?”

And ironically each of us had been “infected” recently by that anxiety contagion.  But what was CLEAR, especially for her, is that she had found PEACE via PAUL’s simple solution, prayer.

Continual prayer.

Intentional prayer.

Directed prayer.

Grateful prayer.

And she was quick to say that the “PEACE-FILLED” payoff of that diligence was a PROMISE that GOD was keeping. 

What an encouragement!

This time of year, the PATHOGEN of PANIC is most certainly in the air.

But today, instead of allowing any anxiety to imprison, reach instead for the antidote and SATURATE yourself and your surroundings with PRAYER. 

Peace is promised! And peace will come!

Torrey summed it up well when he said,

“Those persons who know the deep peace of God, the unfathomable peace that passeth all understanding, are always men and women of much prayer.

I love you all.

Have a BLESSED DAY!!!

OPPORTUNITIES for HOPE