The Battle for Peace
Worrying is carrying tomorrow's load with today's strength—carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. Worrying doesn't empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.
- Corrie ten Boom
Sometimes I wish my feelings weren’t so illogical. I know it to be true that I need not be anxious or unsettled, but I struggle with feeling that way anyway, especially in the face of the unknown. It’s like how Nouwen said, “We aren’t rest-filled people who occasionally becomes restless; we’re restless people who sometimes find rest”—and my version of restlessness is fretfulness. Sometimes, I feel like a fretful person who only sometimes finds peace.
Those times, peace feels like something I have to fight for. Maybe that is why I like the militaristic language in Philippians 4:6-7:
. . . do not be anxious about anything, 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 your minds in Christ Jesus.
I wonder whether Paul used the word guard because he was writing while being guarded himself, likely while under house arrest. Roman soldiers would have been nearby, a constant reminder of the ongoing political and religious conflicts of his time, not to mention his own impending trial and likely execution—talk about a reason to be anxious! What would it have been like to live with that reminder around all the time?
Paul had reason to be unsettled. He understood that our hearts and minds are attacked by many things: doubts, worries, selfish desires, frustrated longings, the urge to control or predict the future. No wonder peace can be such a struggle.
But there is something else about this verse: although not as often quoted, Paul’s sentence here actually begins, “The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious . . .” This word for “at hand” is engys, meaning “near of place or time.” The Greek dictionary points out two words it’s closely related to. One is agcho, meaning “to squeeze or throttle.” The other is agkale, meaning “the curve or inner angle of the arm, closely enfolding.”
Once you include the start of the sentence, a beautiful chiasmic structure unfolds, nesting in three layers (ABCDD’C’B’A’):
A and A’: “Lord” – “Christ Jesus”
B and B’: “at hand” – “guard”
C and C’: “anxious” – “peace”
D and D’: “anything” – “everything”
I think about what anxiety does: it throttles you. It chokes you; it paralyzes you and blacks out your vision, makes you lose your perspective. It drains life and eats you up from the inside. I think about what this verse is physically illustrating: the curve of God’s enfolding arm. There he is at either side of the sentence, Lord and Christ. The purpose of his presence is to be near, to guard. The focus is the contrast between anxiety and peace, between what we are tempted to be, and what we are invited to receive. And at the center of it all is anything, and everything. We are not to be anxious about anything, because we can receive God’s peace in everything. No exceptions.
I still have to catch my anxious thoughts, stop them before they lure me into places of faithless speculation. But this is not a battle I fight on my own. In the end, peace feels less like something I sweat my way towards, and more like an act of surrender—sometimes scary, sometimes a relief, sometimes even joyful. As I surrender myself to this Lord-at-hand, his peace does its active work in guarding my heart and mind. This is not particularly logical, it surpasses understanding, but I have seen it be real in the experience of others and myself. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious.
