The Peace of God will Guard Your Hearts

October 8, 2017 – Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6-7) 

A few years back, I was scheduled to give a talk at a parish and was sitting at our dining room table working on it. My son, Robby, came up behind me, put his hand on my shoulder and asked what I was working on. When I told him a had a presentation I was preparing for, he asked, “What’s the topic?”

I told him, “It’s a talk on effective parenting.”

Any one of my other three children would have said something like, “That’s great!” or “You’d be good at that!”

Not Robby. He laughed. And laughing apparently wasn’t enough. He added, “And they want you to talk about that?”

Despite the fact that he was being a smart aleck, he had a valid point. The fact is, in our role as parents, we were just hanging in there, doing the best we could, hoping we didn’t mess up too badly.

Kids don’t come with instruction manuals.

When raising our kids, we relied on friends and family around us, and learned from life experience and trial and error.

Those were all important, but what we relied on most was our faith – it was our foundation, our support. Because of our faith, we were able to meet the challenges of parenting — just as your parents did when they were trying to figure out how to raise you.

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The next stage of your life, whatever that may be, is going to offer new challenges. There will be people and resources available to you to help manage those challenges. However, that help is only a small part of what you will need.

Your faith will always be your foundation. God will never abandon you, so don’t abandon Him.

Listen again to the beautiful words we heard in our readings. In St. Paul’s letter, he encouraged the Philippians to rely on God. He wrote: Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Isn’t it comforting to know that as you navigate life’s challenges God can offer you peace? Have no anxiety at all…the peace of God will guard your hearts…

Those are compelling words and should provide you with incredible confidence moving forward.