“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.”
These verses can be used to either strengthen our faith or tear it apart. I’ve seen it happen both ways. On the surface, these verses portray a supernatural freedom in which God is directly involved in your life and taking care of you. “Don’t worry about it, I got it!” Imagine someone serving you or helping you with a task. Think of a friendship you’ve had in which your friend helped you and made you feel a little lighter. That’s a beautiful picture of these verses and a description of peace.
The other way of reading (or misusing) these verses is to direct them at someone else who is anxious. “The Bible says don’t worry — that’s a command!” I wish it were not the case, but well-meaning Christians have hurt people by using these verses to swat away hard emotions and make everything all better. This concept is called spiritual bypass, and we do it when we use Scripture to bypass or skip over what’s going on for us inside. “God loves you and wants to take care of you” is really different than “stop being anxious because God told you not to.” Which one seems more helpful to you?
God really cares. Genuinely. He is ready and able to help you. He is a bringer of peace. Not in the sense that he wants to shame you for worrying. In fact, you might just be anxious or worried sometimes. Some people have clinical levels of anxiety, and if that’s you then peace may be more like a place you can go inside of God than a feeling you can arrive at in yourself. The message here is clear — the weight of the world is not on your shoulders. When you pray, you have someone who is listening. He’s guarding you so that you can experience the freedom of his kingdom. We can cling to that truth whether we feel it or not.