“Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time; casting all your worries on him, because he cares for you.”
Casting is not a gentle word. It means to throw. Not to place carefully where you can reach it again, but to hurl it away from yourself.
Most of us do something different. We bring God our worries in prayer and then pick them straight back up on the way out of the room, because carrying them feels like the responsible thing to do. As though worrying were a way of caring, or of staying prepared.
Notice the reason Peter gives, because it is not what you would expect. He does not say cast your cares on him because he is strong enough to take them, though he is. He says because he cares for you.
That is the part anxiety struggles to believe. Not God's power, his interest. Somewhere underneath, a lot of us suspect that God has real concerns to attend to and our small daily fears are not among them. Peter says the opposite. The reason you can throw it at him is that he cares about you personally.
And look at the sentence before. Humbling yourself and casting your worries are joined together, which is strange until you think about it. Holding on to everything is a kind of pride. It assumes the outcome depends on our grip. Letting go is an admission that we were never the ones holding the world together.
You will probably have to do this more than once today. That is fine. Throw it again.
Talk About It Together
Pick one real worry rather than talking about worry in general.
- What worry do you keep picking back up after you pray about it?
- Do you believe God cares about the small things you are anxious about?
- What does holding onto it give you that you would have to give up?
Tonight’s Challenge
Write your biggest worry on a piece of paper, pray over it, then throw the paper away as a physical act of casting it.
Prayer
Lord, we keep taking back what we hand You. Teach us to throw our worries at You and leave them there. Thank You that the reason we can do that is not just Your strength but Your care for us. We are letting go again tonight. Amen.