Philippians 4:6 “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.”
As the context implies, to “Be careful” is to be overly worried, anxious, or troubled about things. When we become overly worried, anxious, or troubled about things we become less effective in our Lord’s service. This instruction to “Be careful for nothing” is an exhortation to not waste our time being overly worried, anxious, or troubled about things. He is not telling us to not use due caution, to not carefully consider our decisions and course of life, or to not take appropriate precautions. But, he is telling us what to do when we come face to face with disturbing, frightful, and painful things that are beyond our strength and ability to overcome. Instead of being overly worried, anxious, or troubled about these things, we ought to “let” our “requests be made known unto God”; that is, flee to “the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16) and do as Hezekiah did, when he “spread” his trouble before the Lord (II Kings 19:14). Once we have “spread” it before the Lord, we get up and go forward in our life of service to our Lord, trusting Him to handle those things that are troubling us. It is our human nature to own and handle every trouble that appears in our path; but, some troubles are so severe that we have no power or ability to relieve ourselves of them. When we “spread” our troubles before the Lord, it is absolutely amazing how easily our Lord takes care of things that we cannot fix. Sometimes He simply removes the trouble, sometimes He removes us from the trouble, sometimes He subdues the trouble, sometimes He steers us around the trouble, and sometimes He empowers us to endure the trouble and go forward. We will be much more content in this life and effective in our Lord’s service if we will not waste our time moaning and complaining and wringing our hands, but “in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God”!