You may think I’ve turned poet tonight, but I have another poem to offer you which I think is poignant at this particular time. I’m not sure who the author is. You may have heard it before, but I think it illustrates what we’re talking about here in regard to worrying. It goes like this:

Tomorrow’s bridge as I look ahead
Is a rickety thing to view;
Its piers are crumbled, its rails are down;
Its floors would let me through.
The chasm it spans is dark and deep,
And the waters foam and fret;
I have crossed that bridge a thousand times,
Though I have never reached it yet.
It has crashed beneath to let me through,
Although it is miles away;
But, strange, the bridges that I crossed
Have all been safe today.
Perhaps I shall find when I reach the one
That lies in the distant blue,
Some hand may have mended its rickety floor,
And its piers may be staunch and new.
And I can pass over, light-hearted and free
As a bird on the buoyant air;
Forgive me, God, my fearful heart,
My anxious and foolish care.

The evil to be avoided is worry, anxiety and concern. How do we avoid this evil? Well, Paul had no sooner cautioned us about this peril until he describes a remedy. Let’s hear him as he says, “…but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” That’s the latter part of verse six in our text.

“In everything.” That is in reference to your wants. “In everything” is in reference to your afflictions. “In everything” is in reference to your spiritual needs. Solomon aptly says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and HE will make your paths straight,” Proverbs chapter 3, verses 5 and 6. Nothing is too insignificant to engage the notice of God.

Let’s note the three specific directions in the text to help us avoid worry:

Paul says, first, that we can avoid worry “by prayer.” Prayer is communication with God. It is the breath of a devout soul to God. It is the desire of a soul rising, moving upward to God for help. Prayer is the light of the human spirit to the Father’s bosom. It is the voice of the human soul lifted up in humility, in contrition and in faith.

Paul says, second, that we can avoid worry “by petition.” Petition is entreaty or supplication. This is something more than simply asking or simply praying. In prayer we ask for a blessing that we want. But in petition we entreat, we plead earnestly, we implore with importunity. We not only ask, but we also seek and we knock.

And then, third, Paul says also that we can avoid worry “by thanksgiving.” Christians are commanded to “give thanks in all circumstances,” Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians 5, and verse 18. How little thanksgiving there often seems to be contained in our prayers. Yet, we can always find something to be thankful for. Of the ten lepers whom Jesus cleansed, only one returned to give thanks, and he was a stranger.

[The ten leper’s story is told in Luke 17:12-19. Luke 12:17-19, New International Version of the Bible: “As He (Jesus) was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met Him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, ‘Jesus, Master, have pity on us!’

“When He saw them, He said, ‘Go, show yourselves to the priests.’ And as they went, they were cleansed.

“One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked Him—and he was a Samaritan.

“Jesus asked, ‘Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner (stranger)?’ Then He said to him, ‘Rise and go; your faith has made you well.’”]

Perhaps we need to take heed, so that the leper’s “one to ten ratio” is not the ratio of our gratitude today.

Here, then, we have the cure for worry—the “antidote” for anxiety, if you will allow me to say it that way. It is PRAYER, PETITION and THANKSGIVING interwoven into a three-strand cord to draw us upward to GOD. Let’s allow prayer, petition and thanksgiving to become our habitual exercise. When the devotional spirit prevails, the anxious spirit will subside because the two are incompatible, and they cannot coexist together.