Episode Transcript
PRAYER OF CONSECRATION
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Abba, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Abba, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
Philippians 4:6–7
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, 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.
CONSIDER THIS
I have a very special dog. Her name is Lucy. She is the product of at least two dogs that should have probably never met: a Jack Russell terrier and a Chihuahua. There is a painful and powerful backstory I'd love to share with you over coffee sometime.
So what does Lucy have to do with our (chosen by many) New Year—New Word text of the day? Thanks for asking. If I could sum up Lucy, the Jackie-WaWa, with a single word it would have to be "anxious." Back in the day before they made me use a fancy microphone to record the Wake-Up Call, you could hear Lucy in the backyard barking up a storm. She is, in the words of Jesus to Mary's sister Martha, "worried and upset about many things" (Luke 10:41). It's amazing how consistent the Bible is across different voices. Today's text has Paul saying the same thing as Jesus:
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, 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.
That word hiding behind the English word "anxious" is merimnate, which auto-correct interestingly changed to "marinate." So the word "merimnate" literally means "a part" in contrast to the whole. It means to be divided into parts and to be pulled apart by multiple divergent concerns, distractions, or worries. Sounds about right, doesn't it?
For the longest time, I thought Lucy was anxiously barking at people, animals, cars, and anything else that moved. I get so frustrated with her because her anxiety drives up my anxiety. Then one day it hit me. She's not barking at them. She's barking at me; and not so much at me as to me. Lucy was not being anxious about anything but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, presenting her requests to God.
One of Jesus's most anxious disciples (a.k.a. the one who cut off the high priest's servant's ear in the garden of Gethsemane; a.k.a. Peter) had this to offer us years after the peace of God displaced his anxiety. "Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you" (1 Peter 5:7).
So, today, when my knock-off Roomba robot vacuum cleaner got hung up on an extension cord and lost its mind, Lucy went postal. And it hit me. Instead of my usual routine of trying to shout her back into peace (which only escalates it all), I realized she was casting her anxiety on me. I reached down and gently picked her up, pulled her in, and held her close. As I began to speak peace into her fractured state, her little Jack Russell—Chihuahua soul came into perfect peace.
What if that's a picture of what happens and how it works when we cast our anxieties onto God, our Abba-Father, onto Jesus Christ, our Friend, and onto the Holy Spirit, our Comforter?
And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Is it as simple as telling God what we are anxious about? It sounds good, but all too often when we are anxious we tend to worry our prayers—which is really just another way of marinating in our anxiety—rather than actually casting our anxiety on God.
Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
Maybe we need to get more vocal and bark them out. Anxiety must actually be displaced within us. The little word, "because," tells us how this displacement works.
He cares for you.
Did you hear that?
He cares for you.
I want to turn this in a very personal direction now. Repeat after me:
He cares for me.
Again.
He cares for me.
Again.
He cares for me.
Again.
He cares for me.
Okay, this is a declaration of faith. Let's take it a step further and make it an act of prayer. Repeat after me, to God.
Father, you care for me.
Again.
Jesus, you care for me.
Again.
Holy Spirit, you care for me.
The more I abide with his care-filled presence within me, the more I find his peace and security solidifying within me. Instead of worry and anxious thoughts pulling me apart at the seams, I find myself being brought together at the core of my being. This is not hard, but it does require more than the mental gymnastics we tend to call prayer. It is the work of abiding. It is not just believing the concept, it is entering into the truth.
THE PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION
Lord Jesus—Word of God from before the beginning—our Great Teacher,
Thank you for caring for me. Thank you that you do not scold my anxiety but you hold it. Train me in how to actually hand it to you, to cast it upon you, to even bark it out like Lucy. Meanwhile, keep convincing me of your care. Keep my focus fixed on this: You care for me.
It will be for your glory, for others' gain, and for our good.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise him all creatures here below. Praise him above ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen!
