<p>4:6 <i>In nothing be anxious, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God</i>- This surely alludes to the six occurrences of the same word in Mt. 6:25-34. But here Paul explains how concretely we can &quot;take no thought&quot; for our lives. It is by praying consciously for every little thing that you need in secular life, e.g. daily bread. It can be that we take the exhortation to &ldquo;be careful for nothing&rdquo; as meaning that we are intended to live a care-free life. But the sentence goes on: &ldquo;but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God&rdquo;, and a few verses later we read of how the Philippians were &ldquo;careful&rdquo; to support Paul&rsquo;s ministry in practice (Phil. 4:6,10). The idea is surely that we should have no anxiety or care about the things of this life- and the world in which we live is increasingly preoccupied with the daily issues of existence. The same Greek word for &ldquo;careful&rdquo; or &ldquo;anxious&rdquo; (RV) is repeatedly used by the Lord in the context of saying we should <i>not </i>be anxious (Mt. 6:25,27,28,31,34)- but rather, we should be anxious to serve and hear the Lord in practice. We must &ldquo;be careful to maintain good works&rdquo; (Tit. 3:8), &ldquo;care for one another&rdquo; (1 Cor. 12:25), &ldquo;care&rdquo; for the state of others (Phil. 2:20). So the NT teaching is that we should not have the anxious care about our daily existence which characterizes the world, but rather, should translate that into a life of anxiety for <i>others. </i>See on Lk. 10:42.</p><p>Prayer should be &quot;with thanksgiving&quot;. Any request we make known to God should be framed within deep gratitude for what He has already done for us. Paul perhaps realized the tendency to make prayer just a list of requests when he commanded his Philippians: &quot;In every thing by prayer and supplication <i>with thanksgiving</i> let your requests be made known unto God&quot;. This is what prayer is all about; an opening up of life before God, not specific requests; a conscious casting of our care upon Him (1 Pet. 5 :7). The believers of the parable told their Lord of the ungrateful behaviour of their brother (Mt. 18:31)- they brought the situation before Him, without asking specifically for something to be done.</p>