My oldest kids are in the stage of having nightmares. Nightmares for little kids are double nightmares. They are nightmares for them and nightmares for mom and dad’s sleep. The other night one of my kids had a nightmare and said it was about a show he watched recently. The show is a kids detective show and the episode that he randomly told me he had a nightmare was bout “the case of the missing eyebrow”. He tells me this in the middle of the night bringing some comic relief to having my beauty sleep disturbed.
Nightmares throw us, children and adults alike, into anxiety, fear, and insecurity. We even become unreasonable in the middle of the night. Life can be a nightmare. Life can throw us into anxiety, fear, and insecurity. Consider the anxiety the thought of COVID-19 brings about. Have you ever seen someone wearing a mask, alone, outside? It makes no reasonable sense. The only way to make sense of doing such a thing is unreasonable anxiety
In Phil. 4:1-9 Paul drops the hammer on our anxiety and what to do with it. Not surprisingly, the chapter beings with Paul calling us to “stand firm thus in the Lord”. This is normal for Paul, to call Christians to stand firm, to stand firm in the grace and truth of the Gospel. Paul then moves to call us to stand firm in our relationship with God on a daily basis.
First, he calls us to stand firm and to “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.” Again, surprise, surprise, the Bible commands us to have joy, to enjoy God, to rejoice. If Christianity is about anything, according to Paul, it is about having joy in Christ.
Going on, Paul says, “Let your reasonableness be known to everyone.” Reasonableness here is having “gentleness” or a “mild” spirit. Think of someone who just woke up from a nightmare. They are breathing hard, frantic, insecure, and scared. Now think of the opposite, someone who is cool, calm, and collected. This is a reasonable person. Paul is here saying that Christians have reason to be rejoicing, reasonable people.
Furthermore, Paul gives us this refreshing command, “do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” Nothing, absolutely nothing, is off limits here. What worries you? What scares you? What makes you feel out of control? What rattles your spirit? What is your living nightmare? Precisely those things are kindling for prayer. Those are the things God himself wants to hear about from you. It’s time to unload those realities to God in prayer.
Unloading those things in prayer is the pathway to peace (and to more reasonableness and rejoicing). Notice what Paul says next: “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Life comes at us hard and fast, assaulting us at times. We need guarding. It is the peace of God that guards us through unloading on God our living nightmares and anxieties. Peace is the result of being able to talk about anything and everything to the One who knows everything and controls everything. He may not give you all the answers but he has it under control. That’s peace.
Our peace is in knowing that the Lord who controls everything and the Lord who loves us is the Lord who is “at hand”. Jesus, the Lord, is near. He is not only with us now but he is on the way back.
So, in the meantime, in the middle of the nightmares and after the nightmares and fearing the coming nightmares, “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”
