Philippians 4:6

Two absolutes are set against each other, and the symmetry is the design. In nothing be anxious. In everything, let your requests be made known.

The same territory is covered twice with opposite instructions. Whatever qualifies as a thing to be anxious about qualifies as a thing to be prayed about, and the verse leaves no category outside. It does not distinguish between concerns large enough to bother God with and concerns too small. That distinction, which most of us operate by, is simply absent.

And there are two words for the asking, not one. Prayer is the general word, the approach itself. Petition is specific — a definite request, the thing you actually want. Paul asks for both. Approach in general, and then say what it is. It rules out the prayer that circles the subject without naming it, which is often what anxiety produces when it prays.

The third element is the one that changes the temperature: with thanksgiving. That is not decoration. Anxiety runs on a narrowed field of vision, in which the threatening item is the only thing in focus. Thanksgiving is the deliberate act of widening the frame. It does not deny the threat. It restores the other things in the room to the picture.

What follows in the next verse is not a solution to the situation. It is a guard posted over the person.