Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Philippians 4:6, ESV

How many times have we told someone of a great struggle we are going through only to have them tell us, "Don't worry about it"? We know their intentions are good, but to merely tell us not to worry doesn't really do us any good, and sometimes it only gives us the impression that they either think we are foolish for being concerned or that they really don't care what we are going through. Of course, we know better, but that is how we sometimes feel about being told, "Don't worry".

One of the things I love the most about God is the simplicity of His plan for us and the simplicity of His solutions to all of our problems. In the inspired passage above He is essentially telling us the same things that our friends will tell us, but with one major difference: He gives us the solution! Notice that He tells us not to be anxious, but He then tells us what to do about these worries - to present them to Him.

And He doesn't stop there, He also tells us how to present our requests when we are worried about something: With thanksgiving!

Have you ever tried that? I have found that when I am really worried about something that I will often frantically pray to God for help. I will then repeat the prayer over and over as if I don't really believe that He will actually help me... how foolish! It is when I do follow His instructions and present my requests to Him with thanksgiving that things change. I have noticed that when we begin our prayers with true gratitude along the lines of, "Thank you for letting me pray to you", or "Thank you for always helping me in the past",  "Thank you for caring enough for me that you want to help me", or "Thank you for answering my prayers in exactly the right way.", that the level of our confidence goes up and the level of our anxieties goes down.

I'm not sure exactly why this is true, but I know that it is. Maybe it's that when we pray with thanksgiving, we are exercising the genuine faith that we need when we approach God. Maybe it's that our gratitude calls to mind that He has never let us down before, not one time, and therefore we can have the confidence that we need to know that He will handle our current situation in just the right way this time. Whatever the reason, we know that He has told us not to be anxious, and to pray with thanksgiving and present our requests to Him and that is enough.

It may sound too simple, but it is enough because God has never offered a solution to any problem that does not work. So, the next time you are overcome with worry over some genuinely serious problem, why not try His method out. It always does our heart good to share our problems with someone. Why not let that someone be the One who is truly concerned about our well-being, and who does not want us to suffer from the cares and worries of this life? And, when you do try this method out, don't forget to be thankful. It's the secret to successfully eliminating the anxieties that are so prevalent in this world that we live in.