Fancy

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”  Philippians 4:6

I grew up having to get “fancy” for certain things.  Going to church was one of the things.  At my house, Church was the main event of the week, and you had to start prepping for it on Saturday night.  After all, “fancy” doesn’t’ just happen!

Pink sponge rollers, do you remember those?  What about the beehive hair dryer?  Every Saturday night us three girls would take our showers and wait in line for mom to brush out our hair and put in the pink sponge rollers.  We would then sit under the beehive hair dryer.  I can remember the smell of that hairdryer as it would toast the pink sponge rollers and warm my long, wet blonde hair.  You see we had to start the process of getting “fancy” on Saturday night because “fancy” doesn’t just happen.

Being woken up on Sunday morning the race to getting “fancy” begins.  Dresses would have been laid out the night before, shoes would have been found ahead of time and been laying by the dress, and we would jump with delight to have mom gently remove the pink sponge rollers and tousle our long beautiful blonde hair.    At least that is how it would have worked if we got up on time if the rollers hadn’t fallen out in our sleep if I had even kind of liked wearing those awful dresses…….

Here lies the problem. I DON” T LIKE FANCY!  I have always felt like “fancy” was a farce.  I have never been ok with the inauthenticity of looking one way and being another.  I wanted to be the real me, which would have included a ponytail and pants, not fancy. 

Sometimes in our prayer life, we feel like we need to get fancy for God to answer our prayers, we think that if we don’t pray long enough or use the right words, it doesn’t count.  I used to think I could only pray at home and that I had to pray with my eye’s closed and fold my hands.  I thought that if I didn’t say my prayer right, it would be my fault if God didn’t answer.

The writer of Philippians reminds us “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving present your requests to God.”  It’s simple, not fancy that God wants.  Simply pray, throughout the day, eye’s closed or opened, hands folded or at 10 and two on the steering wheel, use the same language you would with your best friend and take it all to God, and He will do the rest.

Does this insight change how you are going to pray?  Can you see how simple prayer is more effective than trying to be “fancy”?  Can I pray for us to be encouraged to leave the anxiety at the feet of Jesus and simply come to Him with thanksgiving?  Let’s pray.

Heavenly Father we come simply before you, just as we are and in the everyday moments of our lives and we give you our prayer and petition, with thanksgiving.  We drop our worries and concerns in your lap knowing that you love and care deeply about everything, big or small in our lives and will hear our prayers.  Amen