Be Careful for Nothing

Saturday, we arrived home from our trip back from the cottage in P.E.I.  We arrived fairly late Saturday night but were able to make it to church at St. John’s by the Lake in Grand Bend (thanks be that it was not a 9:00 a.m. service).  The epistle appointed for the day was Philippians 4: 4-9 which begins “Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I will say, Rejoice.”  Whenever I hear that passage I cannot help but hear the beautiful aria from Handle’s Messiah play in my head.  I do restrain myself from breaking into an attempt to sing it out loud, at least in public.

One of the beautiful aspects of the Messiah is that the text is taken from the King James Version of the Bible.  In the NRSV the next verse is ‘Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God’.  The words that come to me however, are from the KJV, ‘Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God’.

For me, "Be careful for nothing" resonate much differently than “Do not worry about anything.”  Putting aside the beauty and poetry of the phase” Be careful for nothing”, the phrase has a deeper and more profound resonance and meaning.  It is interesting that Word prompted ‘be careful’ and suggested I might use ‘careful about’, or carful with, or careful of’.  None of those are appropriate which is not surprizing but then either is ‘do not worry about anything’. 

‘Be careful for nothing’ does not mean that I should not take care or be careless―even though I’m sure Lorna would agree, if asked, that I can be carless about some things at times.  I understand it to mean that I should not let anything interfere with my giving thanks to God in all things.  I do not say that I give thanks to God for all things.  I am not able to go that far but, rather, I try and give thanks to God in all things.  The trial and tribulation and slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that life presents to me are not necessarily sent by God in my theology.  They can be a challenge and sometimes overwhelming, but I give thanks that God is with me on my journey in the good times and the not so good times and even when times are downright bad. 

Therefore, on this (Canadian) Thanksgiving Monday, “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.”