The best thing we can hope for in utter chaos, fear, and sleeplessness is peace and the presence of God. How do we get it? How do we go from the biggest storm to our greatest peace? It is the presence of God that brings peace and perspective that changes everything. It goes from helpless and hopeless to serenity and awe when God is acknowledged in our life and our circumstances. When the disciples were in their biggest storm and fearful of losing their life, Jesus woke up from a nap and calmed the storm and gave a little “parent talk” to his disciples. He has promised when he left to go back to heaven he left us with the same access and power of that peace, the Holy Spirit. How do we access him and what he brings when we don’t have one second to think or we have all night to toss and turn with no peace.
Posture of Thankfulness and Praise
We enter his gates, come into his presence with thanksgiving and we enter his courts ( position closer to him) with praise.
What if we focused on a mindset and a posture of thankfulness and praise and when the storm comes we are already in his presence, we don’t have to wander, go looking, or panic. His peace and presence are already there.
When we lay awake at night, let us start with thanksgiving, spelling out in detail what we are thankful for, rather than skipping to what we are tossing and turning about.
Request Mode or Thankful
I’ve been doing this and I fall back to sleep before I can even get to request mode. My pattern before was to linger and circle around in the request mode and I never go to thanksgiving and I never go back to sleep.
So much time is spent telling God what we need and how we want him to do what we need. We often times skip or shorten the thankful part the praise session. We do a fly-by and never even enter his presence or if we do(because he is God and he is everywhere) we don’t recognize it and carry on with our anxious thoughts and feeling.
God Already Knows What We Need
If we aren’t in his presence what good does it do to send up requests? If we are in his presence what good does it do to tell him what we need. He knows! He cares!
Philippians 4:4-7
4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your graciousness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. 6 Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
