If You Can Worry, You Can Pray

If you can worry, you can pray and I know all of us can worry!

17 be unceasing and persistent in prayer; 18 in every situation [no matter what the circumstances] be thankful and continually give thanks to God; for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus. (I Thessalonians 5:17-18 AMP)

Prayer is simply turning worry the right way.

Like redirecting a herd of ants scattered in every direction, prayer takes those wandering thoughts flying around our heads a mile a minute -preventing us from being able to focus on the things we need to accomplish, rattling around in our heads -preventing us from resting, often provoking erratic behavior and wrangles them into submission.

Prayer lines up every thought, doubt, fear, concern, need, annoyance, trepidation and marches them straight to the throne God. God is both our source and provider. How can he receive our fear and doubt you may ask? Aren’t we supposed to pray in faith?  He is also the source of that Faith. You see when we don’t have enough faith, we can ask God to help our unbelief as well. But we have to go to Him and be willing to exchange our fear for faith; everytime a thought comes up in our minds, we must get in the habit of going back to Him. Taking it back to Him. In that way, we do pray persistently because our needs are often very persistent and the habit to worry is often a frequent thought pattern. So we can take our thoughts captive, stubbornly insisting to take them to God instead of choosing to allow them to run rampant in our minds reeking havoc on our peace. 

As we take our needs to Him, our thoughts and concerns to God, He gives us what we need: joy, peace, love, affirmation, faith and even marching orders. 

Therefore we also need to go to Him ready to receive. Which is probably why verse 18 follows verse 17, telling us to give thanks to Him in every situation. It simply follows that we can thank Him for allowing us access to His throne through Jesus Christ; regardless of the situation or circumstance we find ourselves in, we can invoke the presence of God anywhere. 

No wonder Paul tells us to pray without ceasing… 

because we can.