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.”
The phrase “in every thing” does not mean to give thanks FOR “every thing”, to include the evil and miserable things that come upon us in this present life. It does mean that, while the relatively mild troubles as well as the most evil and miserable things are happening to us, we should spend much time in “prayer and supplication with thanksgiving” letting our “requests be made known unto God”! Said another way, no matter what is going on or what we are doing in this life, we ought to constantly remain in “prayer and supplication with thanksgiving” “unto God”. He is our Heavenly “Father”, our “good shepherd”, our “savior”, and our Sovereign-Almighty “friend that sticketh closer than a brother” (Proverbs 18:24). This Blessed Lord and Savior gravely suffered, sacrificing Himself, to pay our sin-debt and to open, to His People, the Great Throne Of Grace; therefore we are exhorted to “come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). When it is time to go to Church and worship, pray, when times are good and pleasant, pray; when we need understanding and wisdom, pray; when times are hard, pray; when times are sad, pray; when our hearts are broken with painful grief, pray; when sin has shamed us, pray; when evil is cast about us to smother us in confusion and fear, pray; and when loneliness sets upon us like an oppressive cloud, pray! And, when we don’t even know what to pray for or how to pray, we are exhorted to humbly and worshipfully present ourselves at the “throne of grace”, and there “the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered” (Romans 8:26)! Right now, is the time to pray!