"Be not anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God; and the peace of God that passeth understanding shall keep your heart and mind."
Now if we look back to the history of these Philippians, as told in the Book of Acts, we shall see that when Paul exhorted them never to be anxious about anything, but always with thanksgiving to let their wants be known to God, he preached exactly what they had seen him practice among them. For this Philippian church was at first a little handful of people gathered to Jesus by hearing Paul talk in a prayer-meeting held one Sunday morning by the riverside. There Lydia, the seller of fine linen from Thyatira, first believed with her house, and a little band of Christians was gathered. But lo! in the very commencement of the good work a tumult was raised, and Paul and Silas were swooped down upon by the jealous Roman authorities, ignominiously and cruelly scourged, and then carried to prison and shut up with their feet fast in the stocks. Here was an opportunity to test their serenity. Did their talisman work, or did it fail? What did the Apostles do? We are told: "At midnight Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises to God, and the prisoners heard them." That prayer went up with a shout of victory--it was as Paul directs, prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Then came the opening of prison doors, the loosing of bonds, and the jailer fell trembling at the feet of his captives, saying, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" And that night the jailer and all his house were added to the church at Philippi. So, about eleven years after, when Paul's letter came back from Rome to the Philippian church and was read out in their prayer-meeting, we can believe that the old Roman jailer, now a leading brother in the church, said, "Ay! ay! he teaches just what he practised. I remember how he sung and rejoiced there in that old prison at midnight. Nothing ever disturbs him." And they remember, too, that this cheerful, joyful, courageous letter comes from one who is again a prisoner, chained night and day to a Roman soldier, and it gives all the more force to his inspiring direction: "Be anxious for nothing--in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God."