Curing Anxiety by Thankful Prayer

4:6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Perhaps the most remarkable part of this tremendous verse is the phrase "with thanksgiving." We can understand it that God tells us to pray when we are anxious. It makes sense that we should run to God when we are in trouble. But God tells us to do it with thanksgiving.

I don’t know about you, but giving God thanks is the last thing on my mind when I am fretting. I can see going to God to cry out, "Help!" But expecting me to give thanks while I’m crying for help sounds a bit like calling 9-1-1 and telling the operator how much her work is appreciated before telling her your house is on fire.

But what Paul says here is neither accidental nor incidental. Giving thanks in the midst of anxiety goes to the heart of how one comes to find the peace which surpasses all comprehension. This peace is based on faith, that’s why the world can’t understand it. It is based on the confidence that the God who has slain giants, who has rescued His people from all their enemies, who has met all of our needs, who has always come through in the past for us, still sits upon His throne ruling over the affairs of men. So, when we cry out for His help, we do it in recognition that He is a faithful God who is our ever present help in time of trouble.

If we can collect ourselves enough to remember who it is that we are crying out to, that He is the One who makes the storms of our lives to blow and the One who says, "Peace, be still," then we can cry out for His help in faith that He will take care of us.

This pattern of thanking God in prayer even in the midst of great trouble is seen in a number of Psalms. Psalm 44 is a good example. The first eight verses are thanksgiving. It sounds like everything is just fine. But starting in verse nine, the Psalmist begins his petition to God. This man of God and the rest of the faithful are actually in desperate trouble!

1 O God, we have heard with our ears,
Our fathers have told us
The work that You did in their days,
In the days of old.
2 You with Your own hand drove out the nations;
Then You planted them;
You afflicted the peoples,
Then You spread them abroad.
3 For by their own sword they did not possess the land,
And their own arm did not save them,
But Your right hand and Your arm and the light of Your presence,
For You favored them.

4 You are my King, O God;
Command victories for Jacob.
5 Through You we will push back our adversaries;
Through Your name we will trample down those who rise up against us.
6 For I will not trust in my bow,
Nor will my sword save me.
7 But You have saved us from our adversaries,
And You have put to shame those who hate us.
8 In God we have boasted all day long,
And we will give thanks to Your name forever. Selah.

9 Yet You have rejected us and brought us to dishonor,
And do not go out with our armies.
10 You cause us to turn back from the adversary;
And those who hate us have taken spoil for themselves.
11 You give us as sheep to be eaten
And have scattered us among the nations.
12 You sell Your people cheaply,
And have not profited by their sale.
13 You make us a reproach to our neighbors,
A scoffing and a derision to those around us.
14 You make us a byword among the nations,
A laughingstock among the peoples.
15 All day long my dishonor is before me
And my humiliation has overwhelmed me,
16 Because of the voice of him who reproaches and reviles,
Because of the presence of the enemy and the avenger.

17 All this has come upon us, but we have not forgotten You,
And we have not dealt falsely with Your covenant.
18 Our heart has not turned back,
And our steps have not deviated from Your way,
19 Yet You have crushed us in a place of jackals
And covered us with the shadow of death.

20 If we had forgotten the name of our God
Or extended our hands to a strange god,
21 Would not God find this out?
For He knows the secrets of the heart.
22 But for Your sake we are killed all day long;
We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.
23 Arouse Yourself, why do You sleep, O Lord?
Awake, do not reject us forever.
24 Why do You hide Your face
And forget our affliction and our oppression?
25 For our soul has sunk down into the dust;
Our body cleaves to the earth.
26 Rise up, be our help,
And redeem us for the sake of Your lovingkindness.

If a man is not able to give thanks to God when he prays, he is probably not going to be able to walk away from his prayer with any assurance that things are well in (His) hand.

The disciples came to Jesus on the boat in the midst of a storm, and said, "Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?" There was no thanks, there was no recognition that He had authority over the waves, there was no appreciation for all the miracles He had already done and all the ways He had rescued them already. In fact, they accused Him of not even caring. Jesus rebuked them: "How is it that you have no faith?" (Mark 4:40) When we come to God we must come in faith. We must come to Him in thankful prayer. Giving God thanks may be the last thing on our minds when we are fretting , but it needs to become the first.

Thank You, Lord, that You have been faithful to me over the years. Even before I knew You, You were watching over me. Just as You have always delivered Your people from trouble, so You have delivered me. You have proved Yourself over and over again. Help me to remember this in times of trouble. Help me never forget that I pray to a God who is enthroned in the heavens, doing whatever He pleases in heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deeps.