"BE careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." Glory is better than cares. We have cares and sorrows, true; and we should have more if we were living more as servants amidst the sorrows of this world-not indifferent to them-Christ was not that. But there is a getting away from Christ-a tendency to make one anxious even in caring for others. Then I must go and tell God, and this carries me so above the cares that I can rejoice in Him in the midst of them.
And what does He give to the heart that has given all its cares to him? An answer? No-though we know He does answer-but His peace. Is God's heart taken up with circumstances? Is He troubled by them? Is His throne shaken by the folly and wickedness of the world? or even by the failure of the saints? Put your cares on God, and He will put His peace into your heart -the ineffable peace of God. He who knows " the end from the beginning," the peace He is in shall keep your heart and mind.
And there is no indifference, carelessness, or coldness about it; it is our requests made known, and " with thanksgiving." A man who takes up thanksgiving is reckoning on God; and the soul, having left all on God-having felt His hand under the trouble-can say, It is His affair, not mine, He is a happy man going through the world in this blessed fellowship with Christ; raised by the Spirit of God above his inward sorrows and his outward circumstances, and, in the power of the Spirit for inward joy, his affections free to go out to the brethren, his heart lives in the things in which Christ's heart would if He were here.
(J. N. D.)