Scripture: 1 Peter 5:7; Psalm 55:22
“Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.” — 1 Peter 5:7 (KJV)
There are some burdens we carry because life genuinely placed them in our hands; some others are the ones we carry because we are afraid of what will happen if we put them down.
A mother worries about her children and tells herself, How can I not worry? I am their mother. A father lies awake thinking about money and calls it responsibility. Someone may be waiting for an important result and checks, calculates, imagines and rehearses every possible outcome because doing nothing feels irresponsible.
Someone might have prayed about a situation but still spend the entire day thinking about it because, somewhere inside, it feels dangerous to stop worrying, as though worrying is what is keeping everything together. But what if it isn’t? What if worry has convinced you that carrying the burden is the same thing as caring about the person or situation?
There is a huge difference between caring and carrying. You can care deeply about your children without carrying their entire future on your shoulders. You can care about your finances without allowing tomorrow’s bills to consume today’s peace.
You can care about an outcome and still admit, “This part is beyond me.” That admission is not irresponsibility; sometimes, it is surrender.
Peter writes:
“Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.” — 1 Peter 5:7
God does not tell you to pretend the burden does not exist. He does not tell you that what concerns you is insignificant. He tells you where to put it: upon Him.
There is something incredibly tender about the reason Peter gives. He says:
“…for he careth for you.”
You can release what concerns you because you are releasing it to Someone who cares for you. You are not throwing your burden into an empty sky, you are placing it upon Someone who cares.
Long before Peter wrote those words, the psalmist had said something similar:
“Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee…” — Psalm 55:22
Sometimes we are asking God, “Take this situation away immediately,” while God is saying, “Give Me the weight of it.” The situation may still require attention tomorrow; the bill may still need to be paid; the appointment may still need to be attended to. Casting your burden on God does not mean abandoning your responsibility. Rather, it means refusing to carry God’s responsibility alongside yours. Your responsibility may be to seek appropriate medical care; you cannot sit awake all night expecting your body to heal through worry.
Sometimes worry feels productive. If you are worried, you feel involved. If you stay awake, somehow it feels as if you are standing guard over the situation. So surrender can feel frightening.
Ask yourself this question: Has my worrying been preventing things from going wrong? You are exhausting yourself trying to perform a job worry has never been capable of doing.
Truthfully, sometimes, we pray, “Father, I surrender this situation to You.” Then we spend the next three hours mentally managing the same situation. We place it on the altar and then stand beside the altar, supervising God. As a result, surrender is sometimes not a one-time prayer. Sometimes you have to surrender the same challenge every time anxiety tries to put it back into your hands.
Activity:
Write down the challenge troubling you. Then divide it into two:
What is mine to do? And what is beyond my control?
Do what is yours; make the appointment; have the conversation. Seek professional support where anxiety has become persistent or is interfering with your daily life. Then, when you reach the end of what you can responsibly do, stop trying to become God over the rest. There is no medal for carrying what God has instructed you to cast on Him.
Maybe you have carried it for so long that you no longer remember what it feels like to put it down. Today, cast your burden on God; He cares for you, and He will sustain you.
Prayer
Father, I confess that I have carried things You did not ask me to carry. I have confused worrying with caring and anxiety with responsibility. I place before You the people I cannot control, the outcomes I cannot determine, the future I cannot see and the questions I cannot answer. Sustain me where I am tired, quiet me where I am afraid, and teach me to care deeply without trying to carry what belongs to You. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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