Anxious for Nothing for Young Readers by Max LucadoSample

In today’s lesson, we’ll be discussing the second letter in our acronym to combat anxiety. A – Asking God for Help.

Paul said in Philippians 4:6, “Do not worry about anything, but pray and ask God for everything you need, always giving thanks.” Until now, Paul has told us to take comfort in who God is. God is merciful. God is sovereign. God is near. Remembering these things about God brings us comfort when we feel anxious. Now in this verse, Paul has called us to act!

Prayer is where we get to work. It’s a way for us to deal with our worries. It’s choosing to take worries to God before anxiety can take over. Peace happens when people pray.

God wants us to pray about everything. As Paul said, “Do not worry about anything,” but pray about “everything.”

Everything? Does God really want us to pray about everything? Even a scraped knee or that argument we got into with a friend or that game we have coming up? Does God really care about all that stuff? Yes!

God wants to hear about your tiniest wishes and smallest problems. In John 2:1–5, Jesus’ mother, Mary, asked her son to deal with a pretty small problem in comparison to other miracles He performed: empty wine containers. Folks in first-century Israel knew how to throw a party. A wedding and reception didn’t last for just one day. Weddings lasted as long as seven days. Food and wine were expected to last just as long. So Mary was worried when she saw the party had run out of wine.

We don’t know why they ran out of wine, but we know how they got more. Mary presented the problem to Jesus and had confidence He could solve the problem. 

Do you ever want to pray about something but think God won’t care? Remember this story. It was a small problem, but Jesus fixed it. And He didn’t just fill up a couple of wine bottles. Scripture says there were six stone jars that held 20 or 30 gallons of water each. That’s up to 180 gallons of wine!

Jesus cares about your small requests, and He can answer them in a big way.

I have a story that proves God cares about our prayer requests, no matter how small they are. Several years ago, I trained to run a half-IRONMAN triathlon. This is a serious race. First, you swim 1.2 miles, then you bike for 56 miles, then you run 13.1 miles.

Anyone who does this race knows they have to bring snacks with them. We’re on the racecourse for six hours. We get hungry. One of the popular snacks is called GU. It fits in a little package and is made of a gooey substance that gives you lots of energy. I always bring plenty of GU in my pockets, but during this race I ran out. I still had a long way to go, and I knew I needed more GU if I was going to finish.

So you know what I did? I prayed for GU. I said, “Lord, this might be the only time You’ve heard this prayer request, but here is my situation. I ran out of GU, and I need more to get me through this race.”

Did the GU fall from heaven? Well, kind of. I only knew three other people who were in this race. Three out of thousands. One was a friend from Indiana. And guess who ran up beside me just as I was praying for GU? Yep, that friend from Indiana. When he heard I needed GU, he reached into his pocket and pulled out three packets.

“Here,” he said. “I’ve got plenty!”

You might be thinking this is a weird story. You have real problems, bigger than running out of GU. But that’s my point!

Why did Jesus agree to Mary’s request for more wine? No one was dying. It wasn’t an emergency. He did it because Mary cared about it. He cares about your problems too— no matter how small— because you care about them. If He can take care of my GU, imagine what He can do for you.

Paul told us to pray for everything we need. When we do this, three things happen.

1. We show God that we are serious about our prayers.

If you tell a friend, “Hey, can I come to your house sometime?” that friend might not think you’re serious about coming over. But if you ask your friend, “Can I come over on Friday afternoon?” then your friend will know you really want to come over. It’s the same when we pray. When we tell God exactly what we need, He knows we mean it.

2. We are able to see how God works.

This is kind of like my GU story. I knew God had answered my prayer because I prayed for GU and I got it. When you pray for something specific, it’s easy to see how God answers your prayer.

3. We don’t carry around as much worry. Sometimes we feel anxious, but we don’t stop to identify what we’re anxious about. We’re just keeping the feeling inside. This can make it hard to know exactly what is making us feel worried. 

I try to pray every morning before work so I don’t carry around too much worry. I get really detailed in my prayers, saying things like, “God, I have a meeting at 10:00 a.m. that I’m worried about. Will You help me know what to say and how to respond to others?” Then if I worry about that meeting when I get to work, I remember that I already gave this worry to God. He’s got it, and I don’t have to worry about it anymore.