Prayer as Holy Resistance

Rachel Held Evans once wrote that prayer is not about getting God to do what we want but about opening ourselves to what God is already doing in the world. That reframing changes everything about how we read Paul's words in Philippians 4:6-7.

Consider the community garden on the corner of MLK Boulevard, where a small congregation gathers every Saturday morning. They do not bow their heads in a sterile sanctuary. They kneel in the dirt, hands caked with soil, planting tomatoes in a food desert. One member, a trans woman named Maria, leads them in a breath prayer before they begin: "We bring our anxieties to You — about healthcare votes, about rising seas, about whether our neighbors will eat tonight — and we release them into Your care."

This is what Paul meant. Not a passive handing-off of worry, but an active entrusting — a decision to believe that the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guards our hearts precisely so we can keep showing up. The Greek word Paul uses for "guard" is a military term. God's peace does not make us comfortable. It stands sentry over our hearts so that despair does not consume the very compassion we need for the work ahead.

Prayer, in the Progressive tradition, is never an escape from the world. It is the spiritual fuel for re-entering it with courage. Bring your anxieties to God — then let that transcendent peace send you back into the garden, the march, the shelter, the sacred mess of faithful living.