Fear. Loneliness. Worry. Grief.
These are just some of the pressures we’ve faced, and continue facing, during the past 18 months and more. Dr. Robert Jeffress has another word for them: mountains. As he shares with Dr. Steve Greene on a recent episode of the Greenelines podcast on the Charisma Podcast network, “”In the Bible, mountains represent obstacles that separated God’s people from God’s blessings.” In his new book, Invincible, he shares how we can conquer those mountains by partnering with God.
Jeffress says the No. 1 way we can do this is to “follow Paul’s instructions in Philippians 4: ‘Don’t worry about anything, instead, pray about everything,'” (Phil. 4:6a, NLT). Jeffress adds that replacing the worry with another, more positive activity is critical, because if someone tells us not to worry, we’ll spend all our time worrying.
“My friend David Jeremiah has a great suggestion,” Jeffress says. “He said, ‘Take out a piece of paper and at the top of it, write the words, “My Worry List,” and then list everything you can think of to worry about. It might take two or three pages until you’re exhausted of things to worry about.’ And then he said, ‘Take your pen, scratch out the word “worry” and put the word “prayer.” Turn your worry list into your prayer list. That’s what Paul is saying: Don’t worry. Instead, pray, and the promises and the peace of God will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.’
“In my experience, it’s impossible for people to be anxious and to be praying at the same time,” he adds. “You just can’t do it. Anxiety has a way of just crowding out your prayer life, but your prayer life can crowd out your anxiety. It’s kind of like the same thing.”
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