An armor of peace around my heart

Either I am rapidly turning into a worrier or I have always been one and am now just starting to realize it! Whichever alternative it is, it is rather annoying...

I feel that, in some sense, worry is antithetical to trust and faith, and one of the central facets of being a Christian is having trust and faith in God. For instance, if I am trusting God with my feelings of self-worth and identity, then I shouldn't be worrying about what the people around me think about what I'm wearing, or what the other church-goers will think about me having to raise my hand to ask for a Bible when I forget mine. Those things truly will not affect who I believe myself to be if I am defining myself in faith based on what God has declared to be true about me! So the worry and the trust aren't exactly able to coexist, at least not without a struggle.

On the positive side, if we are willing to take a step towards faith and away from worry, God lets us know how and accompanies it with a pretty awesome promise:

"Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." - Phil. 4:6-7 

That's probably a familiar verse to most of you, and it is to me as well, but let's not allow its familiarity to diminish its power and impact in our lives! I see here a wonderful promise: that if we take action against against our worry by taking our requests and anxieties to God with prayer and thanksgiving, we can be assured that our hearts and our minds will be defended and protected by God's own peace, in Jesus. And from what will they be defended, one might ask? Primarily they will be guarded from anxiety itself, I believe - but I also think that God's peace will work to defend us against many of the emotions and sins that accompany worry: fear of rejection, for example, or the need for the approval of others, or an inability to speak the truth boldly. These are different for each person, but the common thread is that they, entering our hearts on worry's coattails, attack our faith in God and consequently threaten our actions of obedience to God.

So let us go forth into the stress and anxiety that the holiday season can engender (or let's face it, if you're anything like me, that any season of life can engender) full of prayer and thanksgiving, that we may build in Christ an armor of peace around our hearts and our minds!