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Growing Joy June 15 Devotional

by David Joynt on June 15, 2023


PHILIPPIANS 4:6a | 6 Do not be anxious about anything...

 

What a command! If you are a worrier being told not to worry, it increases your anxiety. “Now I have to worry about worrying and my inability to stop!” How can we ever fulfill this instruction? Paul is making a psychological point here. Worry can be a habit, a stance, a practice, a repetitious mental tendency, that is essentially self-reinforcing. He is suggesting we should avoid rehearsing or practicing our worry and substitute some other thoughts when we feel ourselves going into “anxiety mode.”

 

Do you have worry habits?

 

 

Gracious God,

Free me from worry. Remind me of my eternal destiny and Your sovereign power. I ask in Jesus’ name.

Amen.

 

About the Author
David Joynt

Dave Joynt began his service as a pastor at Valley Presbyterian Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona in September 2014. This meant a move away from the Northeast, where he has a long history, growing up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and then serving congregations in Delaware and New Jersey for a total of 23 years.

Dave was nurtured in a great church in Bethlehem where his parents, Anne and Carey, served as elders. He graduated in classics from Lehigh University where his Father taught, and then from Oxford, where he met his wife Julia. Ordained in 1988, he completed a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1993.

He and Julia have a son, Tristan, and a daughter, Madeleine.

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