Prayer & Care

We are told to “Be careful” (or anxious) “about nothing; but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God” (Phil. 4: 6, 7). Essentially, “Be careful about nothing” means ‘Do not let your hearts be filled with care’. The word translated “Be careful” (merimnaw) comes from the word for care as we see it in 1 Pet. 5: 7: “having cast all your care upon him” (merimna). God’s way of relieving us of this care (that so often saps our very life) is for it all to be cast on Him. In Heb. 10: 35 we are told to, “Cast not away therefore your confidence”, but, as another put it, too often we ‘Cast away our confidence, but carry all our care’.

   The way to cast all our care upon Him, so that we are anxious for nothing, is “in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God” (Phil. 4: 6). Sometimes the load of care seems too heavy to cast it anywhere, but then the Lord invites us to ‘roll thy way upon the Lord’ (Ps. 37: 5; see note in the Darby translation). When we were children we would make great snowballs in the winter, and when they got too heavy to lift, we could still roll them. So roll your care upon Him, because “he cares about you” (1 Pet. 5: 7)—where the word for care is a different word (melei) to that used earlier in the verse, and relates not to distraction or anxiety, but interest and forethought. We are to be anxious “about nothing” but “in everything” (Phil. 4: 6, my emphasis), we are to let our requests “be made known to God” (v6). True, God knows them all before we make them known, but He loves to have us come and tell Him. And let us remember that “everything” means what it says—every single thing, the little things as well as the big things, and the things we are ashamed to bring. In not one of these are we to be anxious, for everything is to be spread out before Him.

   There are four different words for prayer in this verse. The first, translated prayer, tells of prayer in general—any address to God. The second, supplication, tells of prayer for particular needs or benefits. The first is only used in speaking to God; the second may also be used towards our fellow-men. The first may include worship, whereas the second relates to what we want from God. Notice too, that “prayer and supplication” is “with thanksgiving” (Phil. 4: 6), and thanksgiving is a sort of prayer that ought never to be absent from any of our devotions. It speaks of a grateful acknowledgment of past mercies, as distinguished from the earnest seeking of blessing in the future. As such it may well subsist in heaven (see Rev. 4: 9; 7: 12), and, even now, “in everything” we are to “give thanks” (1 Thess. 5: 17, my emphasis). How testing that is! The fourth word used for prayer in Phil. 4: 6 is requests: “let your requests be made known to God”. This is also found in 1 John 5: 15 where we read that “we know that hears us, whatsoever we ask” (how comforting!) and “we know that we have the petitions” (or ‘requests’) “which we have asked of him”. And so we spread all our cares and needs before Him, in thankfulness for mercies already granted, with the result that “the peace of God, which surpasses every understanding, shall guard your hearts and your thoughts by Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4: 7). What blessed reassurance to the anxious soul who comes to the Lord in prayer!