Abstract
Harry, Ron, and Hermione are three friends on a journey to overcome evil and restore good to its proper place in the world. Their pilgrimage, like most spiritual journeys, has included one trial after another. In one portion of the journey, they must overcome a variety of tricky obstacles to find the stone that is key to the triumph of good and the defeat of evil.
The guard dog, Fluffy, who is much fiercer than her name would indicate, is after them, and they save their necks by jumping through a trap door. Harry says that it is lucky that they landed on something soft, but before he even gets the words out of his mouth, Hermione screams, “Luck! Look at you two.” With horror, they see that this plant is fully as fierce as its name, “the devil’s snare,” indicates. The devil’s snare is strangling them to death. The more they fight it, the more the plant closes around them. With every move, they get bound even more tightly and their range of motion gets smaller. They become constricted. They panic and struggle harder. The plant closes in even tighter. The more they struggle and try to free themselves, the more trapped and desperate they become.
Hermione, who remembers something she learned in the classroom, is able to help them win this battle. She knows what to do when the devil’s snare is choking her friends to death. The solution is to be still, relax, stop fighting, stop struggling, trust that stillness and quiet is the way to loosen this plant’s grip and be released. Harry is able to do this. Ron, however, cannot find his way out of his panic and into the stillness that brings safety and release. Hermione knows that the devil’s snare hates the light, so she brings light into the situation and paves the way for Ron to be released. The three friends then continue their journey to overcome evil with good.
This scene from J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone depicts the tricky difficulties humans face when we are afraid. Philippians 4:6–7 is addressed to people caught in a type of fear that is like the devil’s snare. The passage advises: “Do not worry about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus” (NRSV).
“Do not worry about anything.” This ringing, impossible sounding charge is another way of saying, “Don’t get caught in the devil’s snare.” Do you know that kind of anxiety? You fight against something scary. You struggle and you battle and you move around. You try to get it off of you and away from you. The more you struggle the worse it gets. You feel trapped, unable to move, and terrified as you feel the devil’s snare go for the throat.
When you are panicking, scared out of your mind, the exhortation “do not worry” and the invitation to pray might seem clichéd, small, or unhelpful. This fearful response is completely false. The way of prayer described in this passage will benefit you, as surely as stillness and light worked against the devil’s snare and for Harry and his friends.
Philippians 4:6–7 is like a GPS, giving us directions to travel from anxiety to peace. Verse 6 might be summarized as, “When you are scared, then pray!” Our fear tells us that it is time to pray. If we fight against worry, we get caught in the devil’s snare and make things worse. Therapists say, “What you resist, persists.” If I stop fighting my fears, I can say to myself, “I see that you are afraid, and that’s okay. The thing to do now is to stop struggling, to be still, and to pray.”
Prayer invites us to stop fighting our fears, releasing them to God instead. When we stop struggling, the tentacles trapping us loosen. As we relax, we are set free. We are released and we fall to safety.
The first turn in the journey from anxiety toward peace is prayer and supplication. We are invited to bring heartfelt emotional requests to God. Whenever we are anxious, we can move toward peace by speaking our concerns, worries, and fears to God.
We do this with thanksgiving, with gratitude. Thanksgiving helps us move past our fear and worry. When we remind ourselves of God’s goodness, faithfulness, and love, it becomes easier to pray. We are able to be still in the Presence of God, to rest, to abide, to receive God’s overwhelming, extravagant, abundant love.
Prayer in this passage is summed up quite simply and elegantly: “Let your requests be made known to God.” Beginning prayer with the phrase “God, here are my requests” focuses and sharpens my entreaties. I am more careful about what I say. Naming my requests (big and small) is freeing. I can stop worrying and struggling. I can breathe, be quiet, be still, stop fighting, be released, and be safely caught.
What does praying when you are afraid look like? Pray about anything and everything that concerns you. Start your day by letting “your requests be made known to God” with earnest emotional expression and thanksgiving. When you realize that you are anxious during your day, stop and pray, letting your requests be made known to God. Before you go to bed, pray, bringing anything and everything that is still on your mind to God.
What happens when we follow these directions? What happens when we turn to prayer as soon as we realize that we are anxious? What happens when we pray about everything that worries us with emotional honesty and with gratitude? What changes for us?
“The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard (our) hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” We experience deep and abiding peace, beyond our ability to comprehend. When we have been struggling against the devil’s snare, there is magic in becoming still enough to pray with emotional honestly and gratitude. Such magic is found through the illumination of making our requests known to God. When we bring stillness and trust, along with the light of emotional honesty to God in prayer, our anxieties do not stand a chance. We are released into the peace that surpasses all understanding as our hearts and minds abide in Christ Jesus.