PRESENCE PRAYER - PRAYER CHANGES US 
Paul teaches us the lifechanging prayer of the transformation of our mind and heart. Philippians 4:6-7 which says ‘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.’
 
The wonderful promise of this Prayer of Change is that God will guard and protect our hearts and minds through Jesus Christ in everything that is happening in our lives. That is what overcomes the anxiety of a busy mind and a fretful heart that burdens our souls, and that is what allows us to pray the prayer of faith with thanksgiving in any situation.
The Greek word for anxious is merimna?? which means to be overly troubled by too many concerns and needs at the one time (or all the time), whether these concerns are our own or for others we care for.
This Scripture is a gracious appeal from God’s Spirit to our spirit – and our spirit is made up of our mind and our heart. But to get through to our spirit God has to get past our soul, and it is our souls that get overcrowded with too many soulish thoughts of the mind and feelings of the heart that fight for priority to get attention. 
In Hebrews 4:12 The Bible speaks about the word (logos) of God’s creative design and purpose and that word (logos) is said to be like a sword that is able to divide between the soul and the spirit. And we need that logos word so that we can understand what is happening in our soul and in our spirit, because the anxiety is in the soul but the prayer of faith is in the spirit. 
Our communion of our spirit to God’s indwelling Spirit opens the way for God to speak truth into our minds and renew our minds in our spirit. The truth that comes from the spiritual renewal of our mind informs our heart with a faith that believes and trusts in God and in his good will and purpose for us in our prayer for our needs. 
What our mind receives is what our heart believes – that is a fridge hanging statement to keep us focussed on what God wants us to know and what he wants us to believe. 
That Scripture also gives us an example of that sword word piercing between joints and marrow. The outside of a joint bone is like the soul and the marrow on the inside is like spirit - the real life-giving substance of the bone. Prayer is not just about trying to fix the outside problems that we see about us but about how God reorders us on the inside for us to see his will and for us to receive what he is faithfully putting in place for us. 
Good marrow means strong bones – but even if a bone gets broken it will heal well if the marrow is good. 
Our souls can become overwhelmed by the outer chaos and disorder that we see around us in this world, but our spirit joined to God’s Spirit is strengthened by the truth and order and promise of the good things of God that he has in store for us. That Scripture ends by saying that that sword word is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart, so it helps us to know what is going on in our disturbed soul so that we can exercise faith in our spirit that can assure us that Jesus is dealing with these needs for us in a way that only he can, and in that way our souls can be at rest and rise above the anxiety. 
He tells us to bring these things to him with thanksgiving – thanksgiving for what? Thanksgiving that Jesus will intercede with the Father on our behalf according to God’s will for our lives. So that means he is reordering our prayer. God is at work to reorder our lives for the best outcome for our lives – his outcome – not what our stressed or demanding souls would force into action if we could have things our way and not his. That is the peace of being in agreement with God that surpasses all understanding.

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