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Growing Joy June 16 Devotional

by David Joynt on June 16, 2023


PHILIPPIANS 4:6 | 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

 

Anytime of day or night we can shoot an arrow prayer to God. We can ask Him to help us, reassure us, guide us, bless us, and renew us. At these moments, we just make requests—“help Lord.” But our regular prayers, requests, and supplications should not lead our prayer time. Listing all our needs won’t generally reduce our anxiety! God also knows our needs before we ask, as Jesus teaches. Instead, we must practice praise and thanksgiving, exultation and gratitude, first. Then we come to our requests in a different frame of mind, with a different spirit.

 

Do you take time to praise and thank God?

 

 

Gracious God,

Open my lips! Let me call to You with joyous praise. May my thanksgiving be many and my request few.

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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