God's Therapy for Life

God intends, and has provided, for His people to have peace and joy in the midst of their troubles, pains and trials. He doesn't promise a carefree, comfortable life of ease and pleasures - but He does promise His grace in abundance in every circumstance. What we often fail to realize, or forget, is that to experience God's grace in its fullest measure we have responsibilities. These responsibilities are given as commands near the end of Paul's letter to the Philippians. These commands are what should be our concern and focus during troubling times. God sovereignly controls the circumstances so we don't need to focus on managing those or trying to manipulate the outcome.

These commands include:

1. rejoice in the Lord, trusting in Him and fixing our attention on Him;
2. let be known a gentle spirit to all persons;
3. be anxious for nothing;
4. let be made known your requests to God;
5. think about the right things the right way;
6. do what you know to be right.

The blessing of such faithful obedience will be the peace that only God can give that guards our hearts and minds through the midst of life and all our troubling times.