How do we find a sense of peace in the midst of wars, pandemics, and other alarming developments?

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.

(Phil 4:6–7 NIV)

Feeling Anxious?

In March, the World Health Organization published an article about rising levels of anxiety and depression in the wake of the pandemic. And a recent poll showed that most people in America are stressed out.

Watching the news is hard these days. It’s always been hard, but over the past two years, we’ve had to contend with COVID, civil unrest, a rise in crime, and now, war in Ukraine—not to mention all the personal issues that stress us out at school, work, or home.

I’m already an anxious person by nature. I have a tendency to worry about everything.

My mind tends to drift towards worst-case scenarios, and it was worse before I started to follow Jesus.

I remember going to a movie theater to see a movie that I’d been waiting a long time for, but instead of just sitting back and enjoying the film, I kept stressing about random “what-ifs”:

What if someone is trying to break into my house right now?

What if I forgot to lock my car doors?

And speaking of car doors, why did my auto insurance agent call me just now? What will their voicemail say? What if my premiums are going up this year? How am I going to pay for all this? Should I change insurance companies?

All this was going through my mind as I sat in a theater seat that I paid for and waited in line for. How could I possibly enjoy the movie?

These what-if scenarios just let me down rabbit holes, and the deeper I went, the more stressed out I became.

I was a worrier, and what I didn’t realize at the time was that worrying reflects a desire for control and a lack of trust in God.

“Worry is a mild form of atheism.”

John Powell

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus repeatedly says, “do not worry” or “do not be anxious,” depending on the translation. What does worrying accomplish other than stress?

And in Philippians 4:4–9, we find the Apostle Paul saying to “be anxious about nothing.”

What can we learn from Paul, who experienced a range of stressful, challenging circumstances?

The Apostle Paul and the Church at Philippi

Paul was arrested, beaten, and imprisoned a number of times by the Romans for telling people about Jesus. He wrote the letter to the Philippians while he was in prison, although we don’t know which one.

What we do know from the text is that Paul was in prison for the sake of the gospel (1:7) and was praying to be released (1:19).

There was a possibility that he could get the death sentence (1:20-23; 3:11) and be “poured out as a drink offering,” meaning that he might die as a martyr (2:17).

If anyone had reasons to be anxious, it was the Apostle Paul.

And not only did he have his own troubles, but he also had concerns about the Philippians, whose faith was being threatened.

The Philippians

Paul founded the church at Philippi after he had a dream to go to Macedonia in Acts 16. There, he met Lydia, the businesswoman who heard Paul preach and was baptized, along with her household (Acts 16:15). Lydia, who was Jewish, appears to be the first Philippian to follow Jesus.

Philippi was “a leading city of Macedonia and a Roman colony” (Acts 16:12).

As home to a military outpost, Philippi had many Roman soldiers and veterans living in the city. There were also Greeks and Jews, like Lydia.

These diverse citizens were united by a sense of loyalty and patriotism towards Rome. They were also proud of their special status: even though Philippi was a colony in Greece, the laws applied there as if was on Roman soil itself.

All of this was reflected in the church at Philippi. You had congregation members of different backgrounds—some had been Jewish, some had worshipped Roman or Greek gods. They were united as citizens of Rome and as citizens of heaven, but there were forces that threatened their unity.

These forces are known as “the opponents of Paul.”

Conflicts in the Church

Some of these opponents might have been Jews who tried to cause the Philippians to question their faith, asking why they follow a religion that offers salvation in a far-off future, an eternity we can’t see, when they can have salvation here, now, by following the law. This could have fostered doubt among the Jewish Christians in Philippi.

Some of the opponents might have been Christian missionaries who held to a “divine-man” theology. They were like today’s prosperity gospel preachers, teaching that those who followed Jesus would have power and live triumphantly. They pointed to Paul and his circumstances, holding that humility, meekness, imprisonment, and suffering were proof that Paul was not a “divine man.”

In addition to these opponents, you had internal conflicts rocking the church. Philippians 4 opens with mention of two leaders, Euodia and Syntyche, who had some sort of disagreement. Paul appealed to them to agree in the Lord, to be of “the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind” (Phil 2:2).

And as was mentioned earlier, Paul himself was in prison, awaiting a possible death sentence.

The Philippians had so much to be anxious about. But what did Paul write in the midst of all this turmoil?

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

Phil 4:4–6 NIV

The Most Anxious Week of My Life

When the earthquake struck northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011, it was the night of March 10th here in Southern California and I was at my office, packing for a 10-day missions trip. We already had a departure date of March 17th, having booked our flights two months earlier.

In the hours and days following the triple disaster—earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear explosion at Fukushima—I started getting calls and emails. Half of them were encouragements, saying that God had prepared us to go for such a time as this.

The other half were discouragements, saying, “You’re going to cancel the trip, right?”

I called a meeting with the other nine team members to talk about it. Should we cancel the trip or did God prepare us in advance to be in Japan at that moment?

We agreed to pray, and if anyone wanted to opt out of the trip immediately, they certainly could.

No one did. So we kept it in prayer, every day, throughout the week.

And it didn’t get any easier. Every day, the news about Fukushima only seemed to get worse.

But the more we prayed, the more peace we felt about going.

In the midst of anxious times, we can pray and place our trust in God, not in our circumstances.

Why Prayer?

What is prayer? How does prayer “work”?

I was once a pastor of prayer ministries. I have prayed for thousands of people and seen some incredible answers to prayer. I studied prayer in seminary. And after all this, I can tell you that I still don’t know how prayer “works.”

But maybe this isn’t even the right way to think about prayer.

God—our Father, the Creator of the universe—doesn’t respond to ritualistic prayers like some pagan deity. When Jesus taught how to pray, he said not to babble with many words (Matt 6:7).

And even though this verse says to pray with supplication, which is also translated as “petition” or “entreaty,” it doesn’t mean that God is a genie who grants us wishes if we rub a lamp and do the right things.

Jesus said that the Father already knows what we need before we ask (Matt 6:8). It’s not like God only makes things happen because we ask for it.

When we have a relationship with someone, we want to connect with them, whether it’s face to face, phone call, text message, Zoom, or Discord. And when we lose that connection, it can be painful.

If I, as a human father, cherish the times when my kids just sit with me and share their thoughts with me, how much might our heavenly Father delight when we pray and spend time with him?

When we pray, we aren’t trying to manipulate God into doing our will; we pray to align ourselves with our heavenly Father’s will.

When Jesus prayed at the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before his arrest, trial, and crucifixion, he prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will” (Matt 26:39 NIV).

Jesus made a very big prayer request—to let the cup of suffering be taken from him—but he ultimately surrendered to God’s will.

It’s all right to ask God for big things in prayer. This verse encourages us to pray with petition and thanksgiving, and make our requests known to God.

We just have to surrender the results to God.

Prayerful Surrender

The week after the disaster in Japan was one of the hardest weeks of my life.

We prayed desperately for God’s guidance. Should we cancel the trip or proceed?

We knew the risks. Many of us had families. My kids were a month shy of their fourth and first birthdays.

I had a talk with my wife and said that if I’d go to Japan, there would always be a chance that I might not make it back.

“I know,” she said solemnly. “But if God called you to go, you should go.”

And so our prayers became, “God, it seems like you want us to proceed with the trip. If you don’t want us to go, please stop the trip from happening.” We continued to pray, even while we were already aboard our flights and approaching Japan: “God, if you don’t want us to go to Japan, please divert the flight and keep us from landing in Tokyo.”

Before we left, one of my supervisors asked me if I was trying to be a hero, going to Japan a week after a major disaster.

No one on our team was trying to be a hero. We were just trying to follow God’s will, and it took a lot of prayer to discern what God’s will was.

Instead of being anxious about our circumstances, we can pray with gratitude and make our requests known to God.

The Importance of Gratitude

Philippians 4:6 says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

When we give thanks to God, we remember all of the ways that God has already shown us mercy and given us grace.

Giving thanks for what we have is part of our spiritual battle, because Satan tries to get us to look the other way. Satan tries to tempt us by distracting us with what we don’t have.

In the Garden of Eden, it was the one fruit that Adam and Eve weren’t supposed to eat (Gen 3:1-5).

In the wilderness, when Jesus was fasting for 40 days, it was bread (Matt 4:3).

Satan wants us to dwell on what we don’t have, but we’re called to give thanks for what we do have.

When we give thanks to God, we remember that God is faithful, has been faithful, and will continue to be faithful.

God will never leave us nor forsake us, no matter how grim our circumstances may appear.

So instead of being anxious, we can pray to God and make our requests known, with thanksgiving.

Unimaginable Peace

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Phil 4:7 NIV

This verse can be interpreted as the “then” to the “if” from verse 6—If you pray with petition and thanksgiving, then the peace of God will guard your hearts and minds.

In first-century Philippi, Roman religious ritual was a way of life. If you followed the rituals properly, you would receive the “peace of the gods.” It was more like a legal arrangement: if you fulfilled your duties, a contract with the gods would be formed and they would obligated to reward you.

And, because of the legal nature of Roman religion, the gods were viewed as being rational. You could reason with them and bargain with them.

But here, Paul writes that when we pray to God with petition and thanksgiving, the peace of God, which transcends or surpasses all understanding, will guard our hearts and minds in Christ.

It’s not that we are the ones to reason with the gods in order to get peace. It’s that we have a relationship with God who is so big and so beyond human thought that we have peace—the kind of peace that you’d find living under a King who has subdued his enemies.

True peace comes from knowing the one, true God.

I was 34 years old when I committed my life to Jesus. Up until then, I was a nervous, anxious, fearful person, but when I finally accepted that I am a sinner who needs Jesus to save me, I felt a heaviness burn away from me, like a scratchy, heavy, woolly coat that I never knew I was wearing was suddenly torn off of me.

I felt light and free, filled with a new sense of peace that I had never experienced before, pushing away the anxiety I had lived with for so many years.

This peace came with knowing that no matter what might happen on this earth, I am loved by God and can look beyond this lifetime, to eternity.

This peace of God, which is beyond human understanding, will guard our hearts and minds in Christ.

Guarding Your Heart—and Your Mind

The word for “guard” is more than just a passive shield or barrier, like a sneeze guard or a COVID plexiglass divider. “Guard” also refers to the placement of a garrison around a city to guard its gates and keep watch over it.

There is a vigilance associated with this kind of guarding. The peace of God will vigilantly keep guard over our hearts and minds, which are closely related.

The Greek word for heart, kardia, suggests the “seat of physical, spiritual and mental life,” the “center and source of the whole inner life, with its thinking, feeling, and volition” (BDAG Dictionary).

Mind, body, and spirit are all connected in this definition of “heart.”

This is why the Book of Proverbs says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” (Prov 4:23 NIV)

One way to guard our hearts and minds is to pray and trust in God.

Another way is to watch what we allow into our hearts and minds.

Watch What You Watch

When my family was living in Japan for our two-year assignment, I wanted to stay connected with what was happening here in the US, so I would watch news programs on Apple TV. At first, I would only watch ABC news from Los Angeles, but soon, I started clicking on some of the hour-long news programs.

And it wasn’t long before I noticed that almost all of these news programs were about murders.

Unsolved murders. Serial killers. Hi-profile killings. Ever notice how news programs tend to highlight bad news?

And what kind of programs trend on streaming television or in podcasts? Lots of true crime stories.

How can we not be anxious if we keep feeding this stuff into our minds?

The media we consume feeds our inner lives. If we take in stories about murder, we will probably be anxious about murder.

If we consume bad news all day, we will probably have a dim view of society.

If we stay in our social media echo chambers, we will probably have a very narrow, unbalanced view of the world.

In the midst of anxious times, guard your heart by guarding your thought life.

Be careful what you feed your minds with. Which leads us to the next verse:

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

Phil 4:8 NIV

The phrase translated as “think about such things” could also be read as “take these things into account” or “consider these things.”

These “things”—truth, nobility, right, purity, loveliness, excellence—were virtues in Roman culture. Paul may have been reminding the Philippians that not everything outside of the church is bad.

We should recognize that which is positive and not focus only on the negative, because the way we see things affects the way we think, and our thoughts influence the state of our hearts.

This list of “virtuous things” could serve as a filter for the media we consume and allow into our thought life. So, the next time we browse streaming channels, scroll through social media, or browse the internet, we should ask ourselves: is what I’m watching or listening to true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, or praiseworthy?

If it’s not, it’s like junk food. It might be satisfying in the moment but could be harmful in the long run.

When Paul wrote this, he might have also been addressing conflicts between church members like Euodia and Syntyche. Rather than seeing the bad in one another, they could take into account what is commendable or worthy of praise about the other.

When it comes to interpersonal conflicts, I tend to stress out. My mind easily drifts towards assuming the worst about the other person and bracing for the conflict to explode. Most times, it turns out to be a simple misunderstanding that is easily cleared up by a simple talk.

Maybe we would be less anxious if we saw the best in others rather than focusing on the worst.

“Put It Into Practice”

Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

Phil 4:9 NIV

Is Paul being a little proud, holding himself up as a role model?

Not exactly. He’s holding up Jesus as our role model. To the Corinthians, Paul wrote, “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ” (1 Cor 11:1 NIV). 

At the church of Philippi, the opponents were introducing all kinds of errant teachings into the congregation, causing confusion and doubt among them. Therefore, Paul draws them back to the basics of faith, reminding them that they have already learned what they needed to know from Paul.

And in this verse, Paul says to “put it into practice.”

Don’t just talk about the teachings of Jesus. Don’t just remember them, but put them into practice.

Our actions matter. They’re part of our witness in the world.

Earlier, in Philippians 4:5, it said to “make your gentleness evident to all.”

“Gentleness” in the NIV is translated as “reasonableness” in the ESV. Another rendition is “graciousness,” a willingness to give others the benefit of the doubt and not need to win an argument.

It’s a willingness to yield to others—not that you’re giving up your own rights, but that you’re looking out for the interests of others.

And Paul says to let this gentleness, this reasonableness, this graciousness be known to all, to everyone.

This refers not only to everyone in the church, but to everyone outside of the church as well.

We are called to be salt of the earth, the light of the world.

As ambassadors of Jesus, we need to remember that the way we carry ourselves makes an impression in the world, especially during anxious times. Eyes fall on us to see how we react to stress and anxiety.

Our surroundings can affect us—but we can also affect our surroundings.

Before I committed to following Jesus, I avoided churches and wanted no part of them, but I had this one Christian friend who made a great impression on me.

We had been friends for several years when I realized that I had never seen him angry or downbeat.

He always carried himself with a sense of peace and joy.

Even when he experienced setbacks, like not getting a job that he applied for, he never lost his composure or got depressed about it. Instead, he would tell me that he would pray.

And lo and behold, God would answer his prayers.

This was one of the only reasons I even knew he was a Christian—he would occasionally mention that he would pray or go to church. Not once did he ever preach to me or hand me a tract. He never pushed his faith on me or anyone else, as far as I could tell.

But this friend of mine had a peace that I couldn’t understand, and that made me curious to know more about the Jesus that he followed.

This friend is the one who eventually introduced me to the church where I would later accept Christ, join the staff, serve as a pastor, and leave as a missionary.

This friend has been one of the greatest influences on my approach to evangelism and missions.

And how did he make such an impact on me?

He prayed.

He had the peace of God that transcends all understanding.

He was never anxious about anything.

He let his gentleness be evident to all, including me—a guy who wanted no part of church, who lived in fear and anxiety every day for more than thirty years.

Dear readers, we may have the peace of God that surpasses understanding, but there are still so many out there who do not. Imagine how terrifying the world must be to them right now.

Imagine living this life, at a time like this, without knowing the hope that we have in Jesus.

During these anxious times, let’s pray not only for ourselves to have the peace of God, but for all those who desperately need this peace, too.