Daily Devotionals

Music For the Soul

Devotional: October 23rd

THE CURE FOR ANXIETY

Casting all your anxiety upon Him, because He careth for you. - 1 Peter 5:7

"By prayer": that does not mean, as a superficial experience of religion is apt to suppose it to mean, actual petition that follows. For a great many of us the only notion that we have of prayer is asking God to give us something that we want. But there is a far higher region of communion than that, in which the soul seeks and finds, and sits and gazes, and aspiring possesses, and possessing aspires. Where there is no spoken petition for anything affecting outward life, there may be the prayer of contemplation such as the burning seraphs before the Throne do ever glow with. The prayer of silent submission, in which the will bows itself before God; the prayer of quiet trust, in which we do not so much seek as cleave; the prayer of still fruition, - these, in Paul’s conception of the true order, precede ’’supplication." And if we have such union with God, by realizing His presence, by aspiration after Himself, by trusting Him and submission to Him, then we have the victorious antagonist of all our anxieties, and the "cares that infest the day shall fold their tents" and "silently steal away." For if a man has that union with God which is effected by such prayer as I have been describing, it gives him a fixed point on which to rest amidst all perturbations. It is like bringing a light into a chamber when thunder is growling outside, which prevents the flashing of the lightning from being seen.

Years ago an ingenious inventor tried to build a vessel in such a fashion as that the saloon for passengers should remain upon one level, howsoever the hull might be tossed by waves. It was a failure, if I remember rightly. But if we are thus joined to God, He will do for our inmost hearts what the inventor tried to do with the chamber within his ship. The hull may be buffeted, but the inmost chamber where the true self sits will be kept leveled and unmoved. Brother! prayer in the highest sense, by which I mean the exercise of aspiration, trust, submission - prayer will fight against and overcome all anxieties.

" By prayer and supplication." Actual petition for the supply of present wants is meant by "supplication." To ask for that supply will very often be to get it. To tell God what I think I need goes a long way always to bringing me the gift that I do need. If I have an anxiety of which I am ashamed to speak to Him, that silence is a sign that I ought not to have it; and if I have a desire that I do not feel I can put into a prayer, that feeling is a warning to me not to cherish such a desire.