Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. Phil. 4:6-9
In a world filled with anxiety and no peace, where the most popular medicines are nerve pills, depression medicine, high blood pressure medicine, ulcer pills and the like, What is the real cure? Paul gives it to us in Philippians 4. But what does it mean to think about "lovely" things. Are we to think about daisies, daffodils, blue sky, and humming birds? Maybe we can go to our Happy Gilmore happy spot? Actually "lovely" in the greek is prosphiles or pros - towards philos - love. Towards love. In other words our thoughts are to go towards loving people.
When someone does you wrong, rather than thinking about the injustice, how to right the wrong and what to do to get even, which are anxiety inducing thoughts, we should think about how to express love towards that person. If we are consumed by a heart of love, which only the Holy Spirit can give, no one can do anything bad to us. Anything "bad" that happens to us is just an opportunity to love and the worse it is the more the flame of love is fanned.
Psychologists tell us that anxiety and depression are usually caused by anger turned inward. In other words, anger that is allowed to fester eats us up from the inside. It steals all our joy and peace (not to mention seratonin). Let's fill our minds with thoughts toward love so that the fruit of the Spirit, the peace of God, can be borne on our branches.
