Gratitude is the best medicine (Phil 4:6-7)

Gratitude is the best medicine (Phil 4:6-7)

Collin Leong.  July 28, 2015

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (Phil 4:6-7)

One thing the strikes me about the exhortation to pray in Phil 4:6-7 is that THANKSGIVING is always part of the formula. In fact, Philippians 4 says "Rejoice!"

I think we often overlook this in our prayers because we are so absorbed in our own unhappiness about something, or obsessed about the object/circumstances that are irritating us or giving us pain, that we forget that maybe God a different plan than what we want.

We forget that whatever is happening is allowed by God. God is in control, even if we are not. We forget that in all things God will work it out for the good of those who loves Him. So, we succumb to our emotions or our logic and protest the way things are, and we tell God how it should really be. (Paul asked for God to remove his "thorns", but God wouldn't)

The amazing truth is that God wants us to THANK Him for ALL circumstances, even when we disagree with it, find it inconvenient, unfair, or hurtful to us. Thank Him for that unfair boss or for losing that job; Thank Him for that broken relationship, and for that person; Thank Him for the disobedient children; Thank Him for that accident, or that damaged or lost property. Of course, we don't give thanks for sins committed, but for the circumstance and for the people involved.

It may not be logical or go against our guts and emotions, but Thank Him anyway - thank Him for teaching us to be more like Christ during this painful process, and in faith, thank Him for the wonderful future he is planning that would not be possible without these circumstances and experience.

Also when we thank Him for these circumstances, his peace that "surpasses understanding" will come to us. The word "surpasses" means "superior than" - it is superior than our logic/emotion which says to take charge, to worry, to intervene. The peace is superior, and supersedes our logic and emotions, so that we can learn to let go, and let God. And who knows, by thanking Him, it changes our attitudes about people and things and that new attitude is probably the cure to our persistent problem in the first place.

Gratitude is the best medicine. Look for the positives in everything and dwell on that!

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. (Phil 4:8)