Philippians 4:6-7 (The Message) Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.

Generally, I’m not a worrier. Unfortunately, there are times in my life when something hits me out of the blue, and with nothing I can do to fix it, and then…I’m can worry with the best of them. The problem becomes a pervasive driving perpetual thought in my mind. I look at it from all directions trying to figure out just how I can alleviate whatever issue I’m struggling with. My daughter loves Winnie-the-Pooh, I feel just like him at times – tapping my head saying “Think, think, think.”. I get frustrated with myself that I cannot (in all my brilliance) figure out how to make it ok.

Philippians directs us to take our concerns to Christ. It’s a familiar verse for me “be anxious for nothing” is the translation I’ve always read. I love the way The Message paraphrases it. Instead of worrying, pray. I feel like God smacked me on the head this morning. Duh! Give it over to God. Plain. Simple. Rather than stress about a problem out there on the horizon, allow the Lord to walk you on His path through the problem. Also in my reading this morning was the story of Peter walking on the waves out to Jesus. Peter was out standing on water. Crazy! Only when he lost his focus on Christ and started paying attention to the waves around him did he sink. This story always reminds me of old road runner cartoons. The coyote runs off a cliff chasing the road runner and only falls to his doom when he notices there’s no land underneath anymore.

What wave is consuming your thoughts this morning? Is there something crashing down in your life that seems out of control and threatens to overwhelm you? I know there are big things in life. Ugly stuff. It’s easy to fret and panic when there seems to be no way out of a situation. We tend to forget that Jesus is with us through all the difficulties in life. That He wants to provide us peace and comfort in the storm. Today, as I’m praying for my waves in life, I want to really turn them over to God. I want to settle in on top of the water and allow Christ to be my focus rather than the wind and storm.